Drip (That's the Sound of Your Ledger)
by The Darkness Factor
Summary: There were whispers, after S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall. They followed Natasha wherever she went, until she could ignore them no longer. "Welcome back to the Red Room."
1. Chapter 1: Moonbeam Flicker

**A/N:** Okay. So.

This fic has been in the making since November. It has taken a lot of agonizing and doubting, but I've finally finished it. It's all pre-written, so it won't fizzle out in the middle like some of my other multi-chapter fics have. I'm very proud of it, as this is my longest finished story to date, and it's about my favorite character of all time. Natasha is central to the plot, along with a couple of other characters, but most of the ones listed only have minor roles. There is no romance in the story, though future relationships may be hinted at.

It wasn't too hard to make this story compliant with Age of Ultron; I tried to avoid having it be AU when I was writing in the months before the movie came out, so there were only a few minor fixes that I needed to make. That being said...

 **WARNING:** this fic contains child abuse and death as well as psychological torture, not to mention violence. I'm dealing with the Red Room, so it's not going to be for the faint of heart. If this is upsetting to anyone, I'd recommend not reading.

Also: I know next to nothing about a lot of the locations mentioned in this fic, so if anyone would like to correct me, they are welcome to do so. Timelines are a little skewed as well; I jump around a lot.

This first chapter is sort of a prologue. I'll probably be updating every few days or so. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

"They're not field-test approved," admitted the blond man. "But they will be."

 _Always take notice of your surroundings. Always use them._

They thought that none of them noticed, when they spoke of the girls as though they were not there. 248 watched them through the screen, their outlines ranging somewhere between fuzzy and clear. She was waiting for the brightness to come again, hoping against hope that maybe it wouldn't surprise her this time. If she somehow managed to predict the pattern, then she would be able to lie down and let her eyes close. The men were tall and large and had slept well that night. She would be asked about that. She would be asked about any details that she noticed about them.

 _Nothing will be undisclosed._

Long, dirty curls fell to her lower back. It had been twelve days since they last allowed her to clean herself. The sickness passed three days ago. The lights had been flashing for two.

"What's the earliest age that they're planning to carry out the procedure?"

"Fifteen. This one isn't the closest, but she is closer than some."

248 didn't move. The light flashed on. She squinted against it, tensing up in frustration. This time, she started to count the moment it went off.

"She hasn't started screaming?" He was impressed. "That's longer than usual."

Screaming. That was bad. 248 knew that. But she hadn't started to shake yet. Madame B. said that the shaking was the warning sign— that the screaming would not be far behind it. Whenever 248 thought about how hungry she was, or how tired, or how thirsty, she put all of those things in a box and locked it, just like Madame B. told her to. They always slipped out through the cracks eventually, but that was okay. She just put them back in. It was easy.

 _You will forget, eventually. Eventually, the box will no longer exist._

"We have two others that have begun combat training. If 248 passes this test, she will join them."

The tall, blond man had a scar under his left ear. 248 tried to imagine all of the ways it might have come to be there: a bullet graze, a narrow miss with a knife. Maybe his wife fought back when he beat her, and he received that from manicured fingernails.

Madame B. told her those things. She was always telling her things.

"I'll want to see her again when she begins to scream," the other man said. "We will make our final analysis then."

"Of course."

The men left then, exiting through the metal door that lay a distance of approximately ten meters away from 248, with a screen of glass between them. The light on their side flickered off shortly after, leaving 248 in total darkness. She had counted two minutes and 35 seconds, and was still counting. She did not think that the light would flicker on so soon, because all of the other times seemed longer than this to her.

 _They need to see you endure, my dear._

 _I will last, Madame B.,_ 248 promised. She could not say it out loud. That was against the rules, and the men in black would come in and beat her for it. There was a faint squeaking noise, of the light on the other side swinging, though she could not see it.

It was all expected. It was all what Madame B. promised her. For the good of the world.

248 was allowed to try to sleep, but none of them believed that she could. No matter how she tried, she could not get her body to expect the flares. They startled her without fail, even when she was almost asleep. Now instead she sat, unable to feel her bottom, with her arms wrapped around her legs. Her eyes were wide open, trying to see in the darkness. Seeing in it would mean she no longer had to fear it.

 _There is no place for fear._

The light flashed, marking 18 minutes. The moment it went away, 248 restarted the count. This time she tried to sleep.

* * *

The longest that 248 had been able to sleep at a time was three minutes. Three minutes before the light came back and woke her. The time after that, however, it was not the light that startled her.

It was the door on _her_ side of the observation glass getting thrown open.

Truly surprised this time, she turned her head, squinting again at the brightness that emerged from the doorframe. There was a woman silhouetted in the doorframe. 248 did not know this woman. She knew no woman except for Madame B. She knew about the others like her, but she did not know this woman.

"I _am_ training," the woman said harshly. "I'm preparing her for the unexpected. How else can they learn to adjust in the field?"

248 stood, unsure. The woman looked at her.

"You, 248." She took a knife from her belt. "Run."

Madame B. did not tell her this. She did not say that a strange woman with a knife would enter her cell and advance upon her with nothing on her face. 248 could not read this woman. Madame B. did not tell her. Madame B. did not tell her—

 _Run_.

She ran.

248 darted between the woman's legs, sliding across the floor on her knees, and stumbled to her feet, into the blindingly white hallway. She chose to go right, pelting as fast as she could go. She could not hear if the woman was following her, with her knife in her hand, poised to either throw or slice at any moment. She turned left, then right, and then left again, and nearly ran into several of the men in black.

"Hey!" one of them yelled, but she knew that the woman was coming. She slipped past them as quickly as she could, hearing several of them cursing. Their feet did thud on the floor, so she could tell that they were giving chase. The halls were a maze, but _always take notice of your surroundings_ — she had been to this junction before. 248 picked the left side this time.

There was a door. 248 barreled through it, and barely looked around before she saw the metal cabinet. She pulled in on herself to fit inside, making herself as small as possible. She listened to the thuds as most of the soldiers pounded past, but the door handle clicked, and then re-clicked. At least one had looked inside to see if she had hidden here.

248 did not move. She did not breathe. Where was the woman?

Her stomach swooped oddly, and then her head banged against the side of the cabinet and she was spilling from its doors. It took her a moment to realize that the cabinet had been tipped over by the woman, who was towering over her. 248 scrambled to her feet and ran again, but this time the woman's hand caught in her hair.

248 finally screamed.

* * *

The man in the observation room scowled. "I thought I had ordered termination. Your intervention may have had a negative impact on the process."

"I overrode that order," the woman said calmly.

"You do not have—"

"I had the right. Madame B. was kind enough to allow my input."

"She should have been killed the moment she began to scream. It was too early."

The woman's eyes were shadowed, but there was a humorless glint to her voice. "No. Had she not run, as I told her to, in spite of the fact that it went against everything Madame B. told her before her final examination began, I would have slit her throat then and there. It is a quiet death, more merciful than most. But it is a death and a failure all the same."

"But she ran."

"She ran."

The man stared at 248 as she tackled the other, stronger trainee without hesitation or mercy. She was quickly thrown off, but she rose again and met her opponent with surprising speed. The woman beside him was watching her as well. He could not read her face.

"Adaptability," he muttered. "Some might say it would engender rebellion."

"It's how I was trained," the woman responded. "And you are well aware of my record."

He inclined his head in acknowledgement.

In the combat room, 248 allowed her opponent to wrestle her to the ground, and then twisted and sank her teeth into the other girl's forearm. She did not let go until she drew blood.


	2. Chapter 2: It was Always Burning

**A/N:** Chapter two people - here we go!

The characters might be a little more familiar to all of you, this time. Things really start to kick in this time.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **South Haven, Michigan, 2006**

An ex-Russian spy walked into a bar.

It sounded like the punch line of a joke that Clint might appreciate. Natasha, not so much.

A redhead walked into a bar? Maybe.

Natasha allowed her true self to fade, replacing it with a nervous, geeky redhead waiting for a friend who was obviously more the more comfortable of the two in a bar setting. She cast the bartender a shy smile as she ordered a water and blushed when he referred to her as a 'lady too good for my place'. She fumbled with the water, just like Tasha Roman would, and sat stiffly on the bar stool. Hello, world. Meet Natasha Romanoff, on her first assignment for S.H.I.E.L.D., and she was pretending to be an anti-social wingman.

"My friend's an idiot," she said to the bartender, giving a nervous laugh. "He wants me to help him hook up— I told him to get Daryl to do it, they do everything else together— but for _some reason_ he insisted I help him 'land a looker'. He knows I don't like to go out much."

The bartender shrugged. "Careful. He might be the one looking to hook _you_ up."

"Oh my god, _no_ ," groaned Tasha. "I hope not."

She chatted to the bartender for a few more minutes, not drawing too much attention to herself (apart from a few people who winced sympathetically on her behalf). She only drank about half of her water, choosing to fiddle with the straw instead.

(It wasn't bad, as far as covers went. Natasha could be playing the ultimate flirt, obviously looking for a good time kind of girl instead. Not that the persona bothered her, but using her body to get what she wanted had never been particularly appealing to her.)

The door made a clattering sound as it opened, rattling Tasha's bones where she sat. She tilted her head backwards in harmless curiosity at the patron who entered and made a beeline for the table in the corner, slumping in a booth. Tasha rolled her eyes in exasperation, making a show of exasperation as she stood.

"Well, there's my friend," she sighed. "Gotta go do all his work for him."

The bartender smiled kindly. "Anyone gives you any trouble, you let me know, okay?"

Tasha grinned back and padded across the floor, weaving between patrons with slight unease, but settling down across from her friend without incident. He jumped slightly when she hit the booth with a thud, staring at her like she had dropped out of the sky in front of him. She gave him an admonishing look, nodding to their surroundings.

" _This_ is where you wanted to pick up a girl?" she asked. "I mean, the bartender's a nice guy, but everyone else looks like they crawled up out of the sewers. They don't smell much better, too."

"Lady, go home," he mumbled. "You're drunk."

Tasha gasped. "I am not! I'm bored. I don't like bars. Seriously, you don't need me here. I told Daryl that he should be the one dragging your ass from table to table so that you can talk to girls, but apparently you needed _advice_ from one of us. At least, advice that was worth something, and let's face it— Daryl's advice is shit."

He waved to one of the serving girls and mumbled his order. Tasha thought he would have to repeat it, but the woman only nodded once before she moved away. Huh. So he was a regular.

"You're not drunk," he said.

"No need to sound like you've found the blueprints for world peace." Natasha dropped all of her facades. "I'm surprised that you're surprised, Walker. My handler told me that you've been visited by S.H.I.E.L.D. before, and that they've made you this same offer, and that they've told you we'd be back." She didn't allow herself to feel the strangeness of being able to say that. 'We' was still a foreign concept.

Walker stared at her. Unshaven. Dark circles under his eyes. Natasha knew that what she just said was bullshit— he'd been thinking about it too much.

"You can tell your handler that my answer hasn't changed."

She'd guessed he would say as much.

(Natasha put herself in his place. She liked to think that she would bow out of espionage much more gracefully than this hack.)

"Okay." She stood. It was refreshing, to not have to look for trouble for once. "We just wanted to check up on you."

He eyed her all the way out of the bar, his knuckles white on his glass. Natasha allowed herself a razor-sharp smile. Nice to know that people still found her threatening these days.

First mission. Easy. Of course, it was an exercise in trust — for Fury to know that she wouldn't go berserk and slit the guy's throat so that blood spilled into his beer. Sometimes it amused her, the way everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. assumed that she would lose it and go into some kind of monstrous rage. But on the nights when she woke up to find herself a foot away from the door with the nearest sharp object in her hand... well, then she didn't laugh.

Natasha proceeded to the safe house, in a quieter part of town where kids who didn't know better (they should've) stumbled around in the dark, laughing and shoving each other roughly. She made herself slouch and walk slowly, because fast-paced, nervous little Tasha would draw the wrong kind of attention here. Better to assume the appearance of someone who would make you hurt for not leaving them alone. It paid off; she could sense stares turning away from her almost the moment they landed on her hunched figure.

They saw what she wanted them to see. It was child's play. S.H.I.E.L.D. could have at least made her mission a bit more difficult in that aspect, if nothing else. Considering the stares that still followed her wherever she went back to headquarters, however, Natasha could hardly say she was surprised.

Her phone buzzed. New orders: tail the target for a few days. Make sure that if he wouldn't join them, he was still out of the game.

Huh. Natasha suspected that Fury knew that Walker would refuse her request. She hadn't even had to explain what she was doing there before the offer was shot down. From what she'd been able to pick up about him, he was an ex-Navy Seal who turned into a field operative. An incident happened during one of his missions, and he took early retirement over staying with the agency.

That boded well for Natasha's future with the enigmatic international crisis handler (much better name than Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Divison). She kept the sullen frown as part of her cover, but inwardly she smirked.

The inky blackness of night pervaded the streets of the sleepy lakeside town, broken by the occasional car engine and the faint sound of waves nearby. Walker hadn't chosen a bad place for early retirement: maybe not ideal weather (especially in the winter), but it had crowded beaches in the summer and a quaint little downtown. She hoped that he would take a walk on the pier to the lighthouse the next day; it would give her an excuse to do a little sightseeing there herself.

The safe house was a S.H.I.E.L.D.-owned lake house on the north side of town (though no one living there knew it, of course), not far from several popular resorts. Natasha felt both eyebrows go up at the selection of food (Spaghetti-Os, or chicken noodle soup) and ended up reclining on the couch while she nuked a bowl in the microwave. Her apartment back in D.C. had a television that she rarely watched, but she found herself wishing for the background noise it sometimes provided.

 _Bad move_ , she admonished. Background noise made people let down their guard. They could be watching some inane late-night reality program, and they would never hear (or see) the knife coming for them, out of the dark, or the click of the gun before their brains splattered over the floor, or—

 _Two little girls, crying for their mother, before they were silenced—_

 _—the man pleading for mercy while his wife screamed—_

 _—the building was burning, and burning, and the smoke filled her lungs. Not as much as the screams filled her ears. There was no time to stop. The target would be eliminated, and reporting to her handlers was her top priority. It—_

Natasha.

 _—was worse than the day of the last trial, killing the other girl with eyes so like her own, a sister perhaps (NO THAT WORD IS NOT ALLOWED HERE NATALIA)—_

Natasha Romanoff.

 _—You can't be saved, she chanted in her mind. You were fated to die today. You were fated to die today. I must report to my handlers. You were fated—_

"Natasha Romanoff. Agent 34. Codename: Black Widow."

Natasha blinked, recognizing the sound of her own voice. She'd been trained by S.H.I.E.L.D. to go on autopilot when the flashbacks started, so that she could recite her name and number as a calming technique and a way of breaking up the visions. It worked surprisingly well. She was thankful that they only happened when she was relaxing, and became too lost in her own thoughts.

The microwave beeped. Natasha retrieved her soup.

There were five long gauges in the leather of the couch, next to where she'd been sitting. Part of the fabric on the other side had been ripped up completely.

Natasha smiled humorlessly, thinking about the way the blood might drain from the face of the next field agent to stay in this house. So the chanting almost worked.

"Nothing's ever going to completely stop these flashbacks," Coulson had warned her. "They're something you'll have to cope with, probably for the rest of your life. Maybe they'll become less severe as time goes on, and maybe you won't become quite so… violent, when they do occur. In the meantime, focus on the repetitions. It gives you something to hold on to, when it feels like you might get… lost, in them."

Said the man who Natasha was convinced was a robot. Clint constantly assured her that that wasn't the case, to which she pointed out that she had never seen him eat in front of her.

"He doesn't trust you," Clint responded, unfazed.

The Spaghetti-Os were decent. Natasha briefly toyed with the idea of venturing outside to the beach, maybe soaking up the moonlight, but the doors and windows were locked with electronic security for a reason. It was as much to keep her in as it was to keep potential intruders out. Those little details were left out of her mission briefing, but Natasha had easily found the bugs and cameras in her initial sweep. If she left the safe house, Fury would see it as betraying his trust.

She didn't like Fury. She didn't think anyone _liked_ Fury. Hell, she was 90 percent sure that Fury didn't like Fury. But she respected him.

(He probably knew that already.)

So Natasha, after finishing her late dinner, did what any child who was grounded for the next week would do: she went straight to bed.

* * *

 **Madrid, Spain, 2014**

"I lost four back in Sydney," Natasha explained. "Picked up three more here."

"Incidentally, I told you so," Clint retorted. "I told you Europe was a terrible, horrible, no-good idea. I told you it would be worse than climbing into a hornet's nest with no bug spray. They will swarm you, Nat, and it won't be the nice kind of hornets that don't sting you if you stay very still— it will be the kind of hornets that murder you just because you're there."

"You've been watching too many horror flicks."

"Europe is the snake's nest. You're digging your own grave here."

Natasha tilted her head, lacing her voice with sarcasm. "Funny. Isn't that what you said before I spilled everything about S.H.I.E.L.D. onto the Internet? Yes, I think it is. And yet here I am."

"Rogers might buy your, 'I-was-S.H.I.E.L.D.'s-best-agent-so-I-can-act-like-a-cocky-little-shit' attitude, but I know better." She could picture it now, Clint leaning back in a chair in whatever secure location he was in, trying not to bang his head against the wall. "That incident in Beijing last week, for example. I'm not an idiot, Nat."

"No, you're not," Natasha sighed. "Look I appreciate the concern Barton, I really do. And yes, I know that the tigers are going to maul me now that I'm here. I just need to keep doing what I've _been_ doing— which is staying four steps ahead of them— and now that I'm in the thick of it, I just have to step up my game a notch."

Natasha covered the receiver with her hand. "That's where you come in, _honey_ ," she said, letting a bit of venom seep into the tone. "Anyway Barton, you know me. I'm neurotic enough to make sure I have a handle on things before I proceed with anything stupid."

"So you are doing something stupid."

"Never said that."

"Nat!" He rarely sounded that whiny. "I'm so bored and Stark's driving me crazy and— oh, Bruce says hi."

"Hi Bruce."

Clint relayed her greeting, and Natasha heard a muffled voice speak in return. "Stark's still pissed that you found his tracker, by the way."

"Oh, that reminds me," Natasha deadpanned. "Someone is getting his ass kicked when I get back for agreeing to plant that on me."

"It was Steve."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm serious!"

"This is why you lose BS every time we play it."

"I hate that game."

"I know," Natasha replied sweetly.

"I hate _you_ , too."

"Please," she scoffed. "Anyway, I've got a few things to take care of, Barton, so I'll talk to you some other time. Say hi to Steve for me. Tell Stark to be very afraid."

"Yes, ma'am."

Natasha hung up without saying goodbye. It was one of their unspoken rules.

She placed the burner phone on the cart next to her, then flipped around the chair so that she could straddle it, staring down her guest.

Considering he was tied to his own chair and his mouth was duct-taped shut, he couldn't exactly be called a guest. Natasha allowed one eyebrow to lift in slow motion, watching as his eyes followed it. He was then forced to blink rapidly because of a bead of sweat that got in his eye.

"You ready to talk to me yet?" she asked.

When he inclined his head, she leaned forward and ripped the tape off his mouth.

"I heard this wasn't your usual game," he rasped. "The more of your true self you let the world see, the more they will hate you for it."

Natasha didn't move a muscle, and didn't say a word.

"The information you are looking for does not exist," he continued. "You and I both know why."

"Rumors always have a grain of truth."

"Not this one." He smiled, teeth yellowing. "Gossip. Hearsay. Bah. You must have come across things like this countless times working for Hydra."

"You still haven't answered my question," Natasha said, ignoring his verbal jab. "I want the location of Andrey Benevante."

"Such a good friend. Unfortunately, I am unaware of his current whereabouts."

Natasha studied him. He was still nervous, but he wasn't doing a bad job of playing it cool. His brashness when speaking with her told her that he was brave, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. He was overweight and would probably be susceptible to heart attacks in a few years. He might not be so lucky the next time she decided to interrogate him.

"What were you expecting from me, if not this?" she asked, abruptly.

He didn't seem startled by her question. "Deception is your true interrogation technique, Black Widow. Make yourself look weak, feed the targets with a steady stream of false information in order to get them to reveal the truth, and then escape once you retrieve the information you need. I'm disappointed. You live in a sea of deception. It's the way the Red Room trained you."

When Natasha stood and shoved the chair out of the way hard enough that it banged against the wall, he flinched.

"You know how much force it takes to crack someone's sternum?" she asked. Without warning her hand shot out, impacting him in the aforementioned area. He cried out in shock and pain, doubling over as much as his restraints would allow. Natasha placed her face close to his. "That much. Also, it takes this much to break your arm."

Another crack, another cry. Natasha waited for his choking gasps to cease.

"This isn't," he panted, "making me any more likely to give you the information you want."

"I'm not interrogating you," Natasha replied, smiling. "I'm permanently damaging you."

She hyper-extended his knee next. That left him screaming, and would mean he would be unable to walk properly for the rest of his (hopefully not long) life. She waited again, this time for several minutes while the air was torn from his lungs.

"Are you done?" she asked once he quieted.

"Why?" he asked. "You can't kill me. You don't have the answers you need."

"Oh, that. I already know where Andrey Benevante is." Natasha watched his jaw drop with some satisfaction. "You just answered the other question that I had. That's all. Now I don't want you going anywhere, so I'm making sure that you can't. A friend of mine will be by in a couple of days to collect you."

"Your knot tying is excellent," he gritted out. "This was hardly necessary."

"Beaten your wife recently?" Natasha asked. He stilled. "Thrown things at her in a drunken rage? Don't think I don't know. I always know. And now that you're out of her life things will be better, but she'll never be able to stop herself from flinching when the front door opens— not for the rest of her days."

She punched him in the teeth then, not really wanting to hear any response he could come up with for that.

Natasha took out her phone and sent a text, heedless of the blood on her knuckles: _Got a package for you. Sending coordinates._

 _Might be a couple days. Idiot is keeping me busy._

 _Package isn't going anywhere_. They were in an abandoned apartment building, rumored to be haunted, in a hidden room. No one would be finding him here.

Natasha left him whimpering on the chair, like the pathetic scumbag that he was. She ventured out into the scorching sunlight, turning out of the narrow alley onto a still-narrow street that was clogged by pedestrians. With her healthy tan and camisole, it was easy enough for her to blend with the crowd. Her hair was a dull brown; after almost having her brains blown out in Brazil, she was well-aware of just how much of a trademark her scarlet locks were.

She found herself whistling an off-key rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody while she made her way towards the address that she'd been given for Benevante. There were two black-haired children playing on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building, turning wide eyes on Natasha when she strolled up to the door and knocked. She made sure none of her face would show anything, but the scrutiny from the two unnerved her.

645\. One of the door handles was rusted.

"Hello?"

"It's Talia," she answered; her Spanish was without accent.

The door buzzed.

The wallpaper was peeling in the corners, and the heavy curtains in the window on the second floor landing cast shadows on all the doors. The black writing on '211' was faded, the door rattling when Natasha rapped her knuckles on it. Probably a loose hinge. She'd lived in safe houses that made this place look like paradise, but her standards had been raised after seeing the interior of Stark Tower, even before the post-battle repairs had been made.

Natasha didn't move, even though she knew that whoever was on the other side of that door was observing her through the peephole. She only hid the most fundamental parts of herself; no elaborate disguise was needed for this visit.

The door opened.

"Talia!" the man exclaimed, moving forward to kiss both cheeks. "It has been too long, my friend. Come, come— water? I'm afraid it's all I have to offer."

"No, Andrey, thank you."

Andrey Benevante was a pudgy, congenial human being. Relatively harmless (unless you counted his breath), cheerful, and about the least likely person to be running a weapons cartel on the black market. But run a weapons cartel he did. He and Natasha were good friends.

They settled at his kitchen table, with his expression fading into something more serious. "I imagine this visit is not for pleasure, Talia."

"I'm afraid not." Natasha pulled out her cell phone. "I wanted to ask if you've heard anything about this."

She slid it over to him, watching his face carefully as his eyes slid from hers to the phone. Just because they were friends didn't mean she trusted him; if withholding information would benefit him, then he would withhold it. Natasha thought about the man she'd interrogated. She wouldn't relish doing the same to Andrey, but she wouldn't hesitate.

Andrey leaned back and laughed. "Who has not heard the rumors?"

"Normal people?"

He conceded that with a nod. "Yes, I have heard whispers. My friends all mention a thing here, a murder there— it's relatively normal, except much of it is connected to that name. Are you so concerned, Talia? They would never be able to take you back. Go back to America. Europe is no place for a woman with no secrets."

"But it's where I need to be," Natasha said.

Andrey made a face. "So you say. Tell me, have you heard the most delicious of the rumors?"

Natasha hadn't heard much. The first inklings came when she was in South Africa, meeting with another old contact and he'd warned her to beware. Others came through subsequent meetings, always little tidbits that slowly built up to a larger picture. She'd spent one week back in the US before she went on the offensive. Andrey seemed willing to be helpful, in this case.

"No, I haven't."

"Ah, but it's preposterous. Oh, you absolutely must hear it. They've—"

Natasha heard the crack too late, and felt warm liquid hit her face even as Andrey slumped in front of her. She dove to the floor, pressing herself up against the dishwasher, which was under the window the bullet had been fired through. There was an adjacent building only two feet from this one, so the shooter had to be positioned by a window, not on the roof. She didn't move, staring at the shattered skull of Andrey Benevante, his blood staining the wood of the table.

Silence. No further bullets. The shooter was waiting for Natasha to make a move.

Sniper, then. Well trained. Experienced. Smart. Natasha filed all of that away and almost considered the idea that the Winter Soldier somehow knew she was there— but no, she was 80 percent sure that he was hiding away somewhere in Germany. Probably retracing his steps as Bucky Barnes. She waited for several more minutes, well aware that the only reason she was still alive was because her position was invisible from whatever vantage point that the shooter had.

"Rest in peace, my friend," she murmured, still in Spanish. "Someone else will have to bury you."

Natasha slid along the wall to the right, staying down as she made her way to the back of the apartment where the bedroom was. All of the windows were on the same side, but this one was covered by a light curtain. She could see that there was a window to the other building across the way and a little bit lower, but smashing through the glass would be difficult.

She only had one shot at this.

"Wish I had Steve's shield," she muttered.

Her glock might work in her favor, but she needed to save the bullets. Without really pausing to think about it, Natasha grabbed a heavy lamp from Andrey's bedside table and pushed herself off the wall, straight at the window.

The combination of the force of the lamp and the age of the window propelled her straight through the glass.

By some miracle, none of it scratched her eyelids, though she felt cuts on her face. There were several cracks as the shooter tried to adjust and target her as she flew through the air, but then she was through the other window and tucking and rolling, ignoring the elderly woman who screamed at the sight of her. Natasha used what was left of her momentum to smash through the door to the woman's apartment, running full tilt.

A figure wearing civilian clothes and a hoodie, carrying a knapsack, emerged in the hallway and turned away from her, racing for the staircase. Natasha pulled out her glock and fired several shots, but the sniper dove to the floor and rolled before they sprang to their feet again. They made it to the staircase, vaulting over the railings without hesitating. Whoever this person was, they were good.

(They were also far too slight to be the Winter Soldier. Which was only a little reassuring.)

There was no time to see if there was another stairwell that Natasha could use to cut the sniper off; she cursed herself for not staking out the surrounding buildings before coming to visit Andrey. He had always been sort of 'off limits' to most of the spy underworld, since he was such a reliable supplier for all of them. She was somewhat surprised that someone had the guts to kill him.

 _No close family members_ , though, she reminded herself. _No personal vendettas to worry about._

Natasha only knew that because she herself had set up several scenarios where she would need to kill him in the past. It paid to be prepared.

The perpetrator might not have had a heavy build, but like Natasha had enough knowledge of physics to guess-timate how much momentum it would take to simply break through a door as opposed to taking the time to turn the knob. Natasha caught the backlash of it swinging on its hinges, but she managed to duck around it and slip outside, jumping over the porch stairs. Hoodie-sniper was heading for one of the larger streets, clearly intent on getting lost in the crowd. Whoever they were, they were smart enough not to look back.

She read that body language as, 'Don't follow me. This isn't a game.'

Natasha didn't listen. It had stopped being a game for her the moment the first rumor surfaced.

Andrey's death was unfortunate, but he was someone that she did not deem it necessary to grieve for. The guy was friendly, but also dangerous. But if he'd been killed while Natasha was visiting him, then that could mean that the sniper knew something on the subject that Natasha was researching. If they knew anything on the subject, even if it was just a broad area to comb through, then Natasha would find out what it was.

Fury would burst a blood vessel if he knew what she was up to. But it was none of his damn business.

In spite of her determination, Natasha had lost the sniper by the time she got to one of the wider avenues. Whoever they were, they'd managed to either slip out of sight or go down another alleyway; there were too many for her to make an accurate guess at which one. People going about their business jostled her, some glaring at her for standing there and scanning the street. The dirty looks that she even bothered to notice were unimpressive at best.

Admitting defeat (for now), Natasha walked a few paces north, and slipped into an alleyway herself and melted into the city.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

248 was a trap. 248 was a monster. Her small, somewhat pitiful body deceived, but her shadow was mutated and grotesque, sporting teeth and claws.

"Again," commanded the woman.

Around the room, girls stepped back while their partners picked themselves off the ground. 248 was one of the ones who picked herself up. She was annoyed. Her hair got in her face while she fought. Madame B. would not let her cut it, and she would not tell her why.

She could feel the eyes of the woman on her, contemplating.

"Go."

220 assumed a relaxed pose for a few moments before she lashed out with a fist, aiming for the hollow of 248's throat. 248 spun underneath the punch in an attempt to kick 220's feet out from under her, but 220 jumped back and out of the way. 248 went at her, not allowing herself to think, only to feel, to see the moves before they happened. Twist, jab, kick, dodge.

Then 220 sprung up, curling herself tightly into a ball, and kicked out and forward with both feet. 248 wasn't expecting such a move, and both feet connected with her chest, driving the breath from her. She stumbled away, feeling her focus loosening its hold as 220 pursued her relentlessly, catching her temple with another fist. 248 dove at her legs, grunting when 220's weight came down on her. The other girl was healthier, and stronger, but 248 managed to wriggle out from beneath her before 220 knew what was happening, and had a knee pushed into her throat before she could do anything else.

Then why were 220's eyes glimmering?

A hand shot up and hit her in the armpit. Then 220's leg came up and somehow wrapped around her neck, and then it was 248 beneath 220, choking.

"Stop," commanded the woman.

Once again, 220 stood, allowing 248 to pick herself up. Her shoulder throbbed. There were several bruises forming on her face. The other girls were not in much better shape. But she could sense that some of them were interested in her. 248, who kept losing the rounds. They were all being trained to sense weakness, 248 knew. They were all being trained to stamp it out.

They sensed weakness in her.

The woman had not yet told them to continue. She was staring at 248. The woman was good at not showing her thoughts, but 248 saw the same compulsion in her eyes that she knew was in all the other trainees. 248 was prey. They all wanted to hunt.

 _I must not be prey._

"220," said the woman. The girl straightened. "Kill 248."

220 nodded once.

The other girls moved silently to the outside of the training room, pressing themselves up against the walls, watching with gleaming, jewel-like eyes. The woman had much the same expression, though not quite as plain. 248 knew that she was marked as different by the woman's words— an outsider, an interloper. Someone who did not belong. Someone who needed to be exterminated.

Survival instinct was key, Madame B. had told her. Even prey fights to its very last breath to survive. Prey does not die in silence.

Her voice was rough from disuse. She was an outsider. The rules did not apply.

"The scratches on your knuckles," she said. "Did you break your mirror again? Do you hate your own face so? I do not blame you."

The words elicited something that 248 had never observed before: a twitch of the arm, a sign of a first strike. 248 danced out of the way. No need to engage just yet, she told herself; if she was going to die, she was going to be patient about it.

She deflected a kick that was aimed for her face and twisted away from another punch. She retreated from the forefront of her mind, letting herself flow from pose to pose, avoiding each and every blow that was meant to be lethal. It occurred to her, right then, they 220 might have been a predator, but she was an overeager, new predator. She only knew of sparring. What was hunting to someone whose purpose was only to learn?

It was silly.

248 danced out of the way of a few more blows. _I am an outsider._

"What do you see?" she asked, her voice lilting. "A girl. We all see girls." Skip away. Block punch. "But do you see the truth? The girl is the fiction. You are the monster, and you are ugly."

220 snarled.

 _This is not a game._

The next kick had just too much momentum. 248 dove under it, knocked into 220's hips, and unbalanced her. The moment she began to tip over, 248 lunged at her, curling herself up and using her body as a projectile to knock 220 to the ground. 220 quickly regained the upper hand, using her greater body weight to roll them over. Both hands closed over 248's windpipe, cutting off her air. She let herself go limp, making herself look like she was surrendering.

(Her hair was not the only thing she was not allowed to cut.)

220 let out a surprised scream when 248's fingernails dug into her throat and ripped.

It was not enough to kill her, but it was enough to make her release her. 220 fell back onto her bottom, clutching at her marred throat, now streaming crimson. Her gaze was on 248 in thinly veiled shock, but 248 did not give her the time to register it.

She sprang up and ran at her mercilessly kicking her in the temple, dazing her. Then she kneeled in front of her and placed both hands on either side of her face. 248 was tender.

"This is not a game," she said.

Wrench. Crack. Body on the floor.

220's eyes no longer looked predatory. They were nothing.

The glimmer faded from the eyes of the onlookers. 248 did not want to look at 220 any longer. Instead, she turned her head to the woman. She turned her head, and did her best not to show that her blood was singing in her veins, and that her heart was throbbing enough to burst in her chest. Madame B. had told her about love. 248 thought that this feeling might be it.

The woman stared back at her. Then she motioned for the rest of the girls to come away from the walls and back to their previous positions. She moved forward as well, coming to a stop in front of 248.

"Go," she commanded. Then she lashed out at 248.

* * *

 **South Haven, Michigan, 2006**

The man was a disgrace.

Natasha's derision for Walker was growing by the hour, as she continued to trail him while he went about his day. He could have at least gone to the beach and enjoyed the sunlight, but instead Natasha watched while he went to the drugstore to get more booze and then sulked in his apartment. He did go out for a walk at one point, and he was twitchy enough that she had to be more careful, but for the most part his guard was atrocious. She was almost insulted at being lumped into the same category as him.

The next day involved much of the same routine, only he added a trip to the library as well. It was such an out-of-character move from someone like him that Natasha ended up following him inside, curious about what drew him there. She had not been granted much substantive reading as an agent for the KGB, unless you counted information retention exercises as actual literature.

The interior of the library was darkened. That alone spiked Natasha's senses, making her more alert than before. Still Walker did not appear to know that he was being tailed, proceeding straight to the back and wandering into the biographies section. Natasha hung back by the computers, under the pretense of using the online catalog to search for a book. The place was old, and had a musty smell that made her think longingly of the lakefront.

The guy didn't seem to be a threat. Natasha was considering disappearing behind the pages of a book for a few hours, but dutifully followed her target when his wanderings brought him out of biographies and into fantasy. She was careful to keep out of his line of sight, knowing that even with him being a barely functional human being he was still somewhat trained, and would be able to spot her if she moved too boldly. Natasha slid behind another monitor and typed a few nonsensical words into the search bar, glancing at the results only briefly before she went back to her surveillance.

Walker emerged from the shelves a moment later with a phone in his hand, speaking into it quietly. Natasha stiffened, her senses going on high alert because phone equaled a contact, and a contact implied that he might have connections in unsavory places. Like—

Earsplitting noise. Flying through the air. Natasha's vision blackened for a moment before her side slammed into something, and something else slammed into her chest, forcing a cough from her. She registered the smoke in the air and the distant screams as well (only distant because the blast had temporarily deafened her). Someone was stirring a few feet away from her, and she quickly identified them as Walker.

He saw her at the same time she saw him, and he pulled a gun from nowhere and aimed it in her direction.

Natasha was faster.

There were approximately 12 questions that needed answering, but she filed them away for later. She left the prone body of Walker on what was left of the library floor. There was a jungle gym of overturned bookshelves and books for her to get through, and there were feeble cries coming from beneath several of them.

(Later, when Natasha put everything in perspective, she wondered why she'd done it. She had just killed a man; the prudent thing to do would be to leave immediately and report back to Fury. And yet…)

Natasha raced over to one of the bookshelves, heaving it upward and freeing a man and a woman trapped underneath it. They both raced for the emergency exit the moment they were loose, and Natasha dropped that shelf and moved on to another. This time it was a girl, a little younger than 20, maybe. She gaped at Natasha only a moment before she followed the other two out.

The elderly man that Natasha found was only partially beneath a bookshelf, but when Natasha lifted it she inwardly groaned at the awkward angle of his leg. The guy was light, so it wasn't hard for her to pull his arm over her shoulders. Her quick movement jostled him a bit, and he cried out several times, but that didn't stop her from dropping him unceremoniously on the ground once they were outside.

For Natasha, there was no choice. She went back in.

The building was structurally unsound from the blast; at any moment, it could come down on her head. She didn't care, though— there was something drawing her to the east side of the library, something she just knew was there.

A boy with huge eyes turned to look at her as Natasha pushed her way into the room. She could just barely make out tear tracks glimmering on his cheeks before she ushered him over to another exit. Three other children were trapped, a girl was hiding under the help desk, and—

Bile. No. Bile was a liability. Natasha forced it down.

Another boy and a girl were in the picture book section, barely three or four. Both of them were covered in burns.

Natasha did what she did best: she compartmentalized.

So when she hoisted the boy over her shoulder, his cry of agony did nothing to her heart rate. When she gathered up the girl in her right arm, the discovery that she was unconscious and bleeding from her shoulder had no effect on her breathing. The only thought she had was to get them both out. Getting them out meant medical attention. Getting them out increased their chances of living through this.

( _The fire, the fire, the screaming, the fire. Burning. Mama?_ )

Gasps of relief met her when she emerged into the sunlight, this time setting the two down as gently as she could. The boy whimpered. The girl was limp.

When the onslaught of paramedics, parents, library patrons and curious locals surged forward, Natasha made herself as small as possible and slipped away.

She probably had about thirty seconds before the flashback overwhelmed her. In that time, she was able to dart down two blocks of roads until she found a deserted alleyway and sank back against the wall, head in her hands.

"Natasha Romanoff. Agent 34. Codename: Black Widow."

 _Where is mama? Papa? Papa? Where is mama?_

"Natasha Romanoff."

 _Mama!_

"Agent 34."

Papa, why? Mama! Mama, no!

"Codename: Black Widow."

Abruptly, the flashback stopped. Like a radio signal that had been cut off.

Natasha blinked.

Well… that was new.

She forced herself to stand up and walk, ignoring how much her leg muscles wanted to tremble. She easily kept out of sight and kept walking, a shadow headed for the lake. Her next objective was to get to the safe house. She could suppress the throbbing of her skull for a little while, but now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, it was painfully obvious that she had a concussion.

Emphasis on the 'painful' part.

She was just a few blocks away when a wave of dizziness hit her, almost knocking her over. Natasha gritted her teeth; she couldn't afford to pass out in the middle of the sidewalk. This was already a legal nightmare; who knew what kind of aneurism Fury would have if he discovered that she'd been brought to a civilian hospital.

Back-up plan, then: pass out somewhere quiet.

'Somewhere quiet' turned out to be a ravine in the small patch of forest that lined the beach. She did her best to angle herself out of the water, and then awaited the wave of darkness that surged forward to claim her.


	3. Chapter 3: It's a God Damn Arms Race

**A/N:** On to chapter three! Hope you guys like it!

* * *

 **South Haven, Michigan, 2006**

Crunch. Leaves underfoot.

Natasha suppressed her instinct to groan as she came to, instantly alert to someone approaching her. She waited until the sound from the leaves was almost right next to her ear before she twisted and rolled backwards, coming up behind a larger boulder and eyeing the interloper.

"Pretty spry for a dead chick."

Natasha blinked. Dirty blond hair, a wry smile, compact build. She looked approximately 20 to 25 years old.

"Did you want something?" she asked. There was nothing to give away the fact that she was prepared to kill the woman if necessary.

"Well, I saw a chick passed out in a ravine," the woman responded, shrugging. "So I was gonna, y'know, loot your body. What do I look like, the Joker? I'm a human being; I wanted to see if you were okay. Hey, wait— you were the one in the library, right? The girl that that guy tried to shoot?"

Natasha was all too aware of the cold metal of her glock pressed against her lower back.

"You got balls of steel, that's for sure." The girl didn't approach her. "Going back in there."

"It was a little something called 'the right thing to do'." The words tasted like ash.

"Not leaving kids to burn, I get," agreed the girl, "But sticking around here afterwards? That guy was gunnin' for you, I saw it. So what, ex-husband who really hates you? Seems a bit much to blow up the library over."

The woman's palms were trembling. It occurred to Natasha that she must not have been unconscious for long, if the woman was still experiencing trauma from being in the explosion. And she must have been there— she wouldn't know about Natasha otherwise. Other than that, there were no telltale signs of distress, so Natasha stood. Whoever she was, she looked less and less like a threat.

"You're half right about the ex-husband bit," Natasha replied. It was surreal, interacting with a civilian like this. Blowing up the library did seem a bit like an overreaction, though. She'd been sure that he was unaware she was tailing him, too. If he had known, he would have confronted her sooner.

"Jealous boyfriend? Secretly an alien?"

"You're already going to have nightmares from that," Natasha said flatly. "The last thing you probably need is an over-active imagination."

The woman threw back her head and laughed.

"Giving it to me straight, huh?" There wasn't a whole lot of amusement in her voice. "Like I said, balls of steel. Not that you actually have balls. I mean—" She peered at Natasha. "You don't, do you? Because if you do that's totally cool. I won't judge. You ever gonna treat that concussion?"

Natasha eyed her again, this time almost reaching for her glock. "Well, I did pass out, but then I woke up again. Which means I'll probably live."

The woman snorted. This time she did approach, although slowly. "Consider this an invitation. My place. I can get you fixed up, maybe feed you something even though I can't cook for shit, and then we'll pretend like we don't know each other because you're obviously a little hung up on your ex-husband/jealous boyfriend/alien lover thing."

"So now he's my alien lover?"

"Well yeah. What's it like having sex with an alien?"

"We just met."

"It's small talk."

God, it was like making conversation with a female Clint.

The woman made a point of not touching her as they walked back through the forest to the road. Natasha was almost certain that her showing up was no coincidence, but she still could not detect a threat from her. It was a little disconcerting; she detected threats from everybody. The woman blabbered about something all the way to her little cottage, a few blocks away from the lake. Natasha recognized her technique for coping with the trauma from earlier.

She half-expected another flashback to start. Since Natasha didn't suddenly find herself coming to with a now-dead woman next to her, she hazarded a guess that she didn't get one.

"I'm Lana," the woman said, giving her a half wave that looked more like jazz hands. "My dream in life is to be able to speak like Yoda to the President of the United States."

"I'm Tasha," Natasha deadpanned. "My dream in life is to confirm that you aren't the genderbent clone of a friend of mine."

"Geez. Am I that bad?"

Natasha didn't bother to answer that. She smiled coldly instead.

Lana's eyes went wide, and she took a large step away from Natasha. "Um. You're kind of terrifying."

"Here's Johnny."

"Fuck's sake. Don't say that." Lana shuddered. She had something of a bouncing gait to her stride, every step containing pent-up energy that she occasionally released when she leapt over something like a tree root, or a skateboard.

Her cottage was a humble abode, complete with one bedroom, one bathroom, one sitting room, and one kitchen. Lana proceeded to pull a frozen pizza out of her freezer while Natasha did a cursory check of the place. No bugs. No hidden weapons. It didn't look like the lair of a serial killer. Lana was certainly keyed up enough to be one, but her nervous ticks were all normal signs of someone who had been affected by an unpleasant experience.

Still not a threat.

"I've got Advil. Unless you're like a ninja and can go to the hospital and steal some morphine."

"Advil will do," Natasha replied.

She didn't need it— her headache was receding, and the dizziness hadn't hit her since she woke up.

Lana handed her a glass of water and a tablet. Natasha drank the water. She stuffed the tablet down one of the couch cushions.

"What do you want?" Natasha asked again.

Lana flopped down in an armchair, yawning. Her eyes drifted over to Natasha and held her gaze. "I wanted to be the big damn hero who saved the big damn hero. That satisfy your curiosity?"

"No."

"Didn't think so." Lana hummed. "Okay. _I_ was curious. And, well… you were pretty cool. Back there."

Natasha stared at her. Was the woman who had followed her into a ravine and approached her while she was passed out (and she had to be a threat, even though Natasha didn't read a threat from her) saying that she followed Natasha because… what? She _admired_ her? Now that was a laugh. She couldn't wait to tell Barton about this one.

"Anyway," Lana said, shaking herself. "Hope you're not vegetarian or anything, because my parents left me a meat lover's pizza when they went road-tripping to New York. It's pretty much all I've got, unless you count, like, three cans of Cream of Mushroom in the pantry. My mom likes mushrooms way too much."

"I'm not a vegetarian," Natasha said. She was still trying to wrap her head around Lana.

"Oh. Good." Lana moved back into the kitchen. "You need a ride somewhere after this?"

There was no way Natasha could lead Lana straight back to the safe house; even if the other woman turned out to be harmless, she still already knew too much about Natasha. She briefly considered bringing the girl back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with her (let Fury deal with her smart mouth), but instinct told her that that was a bad idea, as well. Maybe it was because it was Natasha's first time interacting with someone who was not a target— who had nothing to do with her mission parameters. She found the thought that of all the people she could encounter in her line of work, the one to unbalance her the most was the most ordinary one.

She accepted a plate with two slices from Lana, hot grease dripping onto her fingers. This didn't seem to deter Lana, who bit into her slice and chewed without even bothering to try to cool it first.

Lana chewed and swallowed. "Sorry. I'm starving."

Natasha almost snorted again. They were well beyond manners now, weren't they?

The pizza was good. Not as good as the pizza that Clint had ordered for her, when he first found out that she'd never eaten it before ("Shit, Nat, you don't know what you're missing." "Well of _course_ I don't, Barton, what do you expect?" "Yeah, but this is like, ambrosia of the gods.") After she finished eating, her slow chewing a contrast to Lana's enthusiastic munching, she told her that she'd like a ride to the nearest airport, if at all possible.

"Hope you're not going international, because then _we'd_ be going on a roadtrip."

"No. Anywhere that does commercial flights is fine."

While Natasha waited for Lana to clean up, she reminded herself that even though Walker was dead, that didn't mean details were unimportant. She took in the house— the minimal décor, aside from a few pictures, and the lack of personal touches in the sitting room and in the bathroom that she used— and deduced that the parents weren't around that much. They probably owned the house, were retired, and vacationed a lot. Which left their daughter at home, most likely working a part time job somewhere in town, who wasn't quite making enough money to feed herself.

Huh.

Natasha should probably be feeling more sympathy.

Instead she was silent as she followed Lana out to an old Mercedes that sat in the driveway. Based on what she already knew, she half expected Lana to be a wild and reckless driver, but instead she took a surprising amount of care on her turns and mumbled swears at the people who didn't bother with turn signals. The sun was setting out over Lake Michigan as they drove away from it, further inland so that they could reach the airport.

Natasha used the time to devise a plan, in her head: give Fury the address of Lana, all of the information she had gleaned from her, and her recommendation that Lana be kept under surveillance indefinitely. It hit her, then, that S.H.I.E.L.D. might not be too inclined to listen, especially after they saw that she didn't return to the safe house on day three, like she was supposed to. She was being driven to the airport early, instead of the next morning as planned.

"Try not to look like shit," Lana recommended helpfully, when they parked. "The airport security people will have a field day."

Natasha felt a cruel laugh in her gut. Oh, if only she knew.

"Listen," she said instead. A bit of the drawl that she would have used if she were pretending to be an American while working for the KGB slipped into her voice. "Next time you find some guy or some girl passed out in a ravine after they played at being the hero, I'd leave them alone. Your morbid curiosity's going to get you in trouble. You're an attention seeker—"

"Whoa, whoa, hey—"

"— and even though your parents neglect you, that's no excuse."

Lana stared at her, fists balled up at her sides. "You— how did you—" Her fingers flexed. For the third time, Natasha was aware of the glock against her back. "What the fuck? What the actual _fuck_?"

She turned in a whirl, wrenching open the door to her car, and this time she did speed away recklessly.

Natasha, knowing that she was alone, allowed the ugly smile she'd shown before appear on her face again. Then she turned around and headed for the terminal entrance.

* * *

 **Outskirts of Madrid, 2014**

"Twenty hours," Steve said flatly. "You were supposed to check in with us twenty _hours_ ago."

"Sniper. Andrey Benevante is dead. I had to go off the grid until I found a place I was absolutely sure was secure."

She'd gone back to where she'd been interrogating the lowlife from before, and found his corpse.

"Someone's tracking me," she explained. "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's someone who's either worked with me before or been studying me for a while now. They killed Andrey with one shot. No warning. I honestly didn't think anything would go wrong, Steve, but it did."

"So, I wasn't gonna say 'I told you so'," Clint said, "but I totally told you so."

Natasha flipped him off.

"A sniper?" Steve asked, his expression twisting somewhere between worried and hopeful. "You don't think it's—?"

"It isn't Barnes," Natasha said, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt at the way his face fell. There was a reason why she was able to be at her most genuine around Steve. "I never got a facial visual, but their build wasn't nearly large enough to fit his profile. Unless he knows how to shrink himself, all of a sudden."

"Any ideas who it could be?" Clint asked.

There was a loud clatter, followed by several colorful curses. Both Clint and Steve ignored it like pros, but Bruce let out a long-suffering sigh and moved off-camera to go help Tony. None of them looked like they were getting much sleep— which could only mean that Natasha herself looked like she'd climbed out of hell.

"I can think of 15 or so living snipers who could make the shot," Natasha, touching her finger to her chin. "Barnes, obviously, but it wasn't him. I can cross off a few others with heavier builds, too, which leaves 11. One is sitting next to you, Steve, leaving 10. Some are mercs, some are former KGB agents. A few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Some of them could be working for Hydra; who knows."

"Any particular reason why?"

"The less you know, Steve." Natasha's smile might have been a bit sad. Of course, that meant that both Clint and Steve looked more alarmed than before, staring at her. Bruce came back into the picture, frowning.

"Look, the others might have underestimated how much of a peacock you can be—" Clint began.

"Says the man who struts," she drawled. "It's not a matter of pride. It's a matter of knowing that I am the _only one_ who can handle this."

"Still calling bullshit."

"I'm seconding that notion," came Tony's voice off camera. Damn it. Natasha hated it when he did that— when he pretended that he was so self-absorbed that he didn't pay attention to anything around him. It was a mistake that everyone made with Tony Stark. Sometimes with fatal results, depending on the situation. "J can't figure out what it is you're after—"

"Compartmentalization, Stark," Natasha said. All of the information she had on it was in a little paper notebook she carried with her. The rest of the details were sealed firmly in her brain. J.A.R.V.I.S. would have to browse the web in order to get even an inkling of what she was after, and even then it would be a far cry from the truth.

 _Rumors. Gossip._ That was what everyone claimed. Logically, it was the most likely outcome— there was a 99 percent chance that it was all a hoax. But even if the chance that it was all true was only 1 percent, Natasha still needed to follow up on it. It was the only price she would accept for herself.

"For curiosity's sake, more than anything else." Tony appeared on camera for the first time, grease stains on his shirt. "But even though _I'm_ totally not worried— I just think you're a nutcase— Steve couldn't take it. You know. Stress, combined with old age—"

"Normally I'd be somewhat okay with putting up with your roundabout, terrible sense of humor," Natasha interrupted. "But right now?"

She fixed him with a look until he slunk off camera, and he didn't speak again.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Steve said at last. "I think it'd be better if you actually reported in. Just for a few days."

'Reported in' was what they all said when they referred to visiting Stark Tower. It had become their impromptu headquarters— where Steve and Sam sometimes waited while searching for a new lead on Bucky, where Clint had been living indefinitely (he called it an extended vacation, but Natasha suspected that he was just as spooked by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s true core as she was and wasn't really eager to get back to work), and where Tony and Bruce had been living for over two years.

Apart from Thor, Natasha suspected that she was the Avenger who spent the least amount of time there.

Bruce had tried (and partially succeeded) to confront her about it. In one of her rare visits, he came to her apartment with a bottle of vodka as a peace offering and went straight for the jugular. Natasha's default response was to thank him for the alcohol and the company, and then tell him that she couldn't, yet. She would. One day. But probably not anytime soon.

"Just… don't count your actions as a death sentence," he'd replied. "You'll be back."

Natasha thought about the sniper from today. She hadn't even seen them coming. She never spoke of it— always smiled and joked, making it sound like evading all of her enemies was a game to her. Clint might have known the truth (nothing was ever a game), and Steve always looked slightly disappointed when she took few of his precautions seriously. Bruce would stare at her levelly, and say nothing on the matter.

"I'm not reporting in," Natasha answered at last. "Party in the abandoned warehouse outside of town. Whoo."

"BYOB," snickered Clint.

Seeing Steve raise an eyebrow at her, she sighed. "The abandoned warehouse that has a few surprises for intruders, Cap. Also, I'll be sleeping in the rafters. 99 percent of attackers wouldn't enter through the roof, and the darkness means that my sniper friend won't be able to see where I am."

She paused, waiting for a response. There wasn't one, so she continued.

"I'll call you guys back in a few days," she said. "I'm planning on staying here, and doing a little more recon. I want to see if I can find that sniper again."

"Seems risky," Steve said.

"It's usually easier to find someone if they're trying to find you." And whoever they were, they definitely wanted Natasha dead. If not, they wouldn't have stuck around after killing Benevante.

"Get some sleep," Bruce told her. "Don't let the, uh, rafter bugs bite."

"Probably termites," Natasha said cheerfully. "Or roaches."

Clint shuddered.

Steve leaned forward, making sure she was making eye contact with him before he spoke. "A few days. I expect another call. You hear me, Natasha?"

She smiled blandly. His eyes narrowed (she knew he would recognize that smile), but when she didn't say anything else he pulled back. He didn't look satisfied with her explanation, but he had worked with her long enough to recognize when Natasha was finished with a conversation.

"I'm gonna go shoot some things," Clint announced. "Bye, Nat."

"Bye."

"Watch out for yourself," Steve cautioned.

Natasha kept the indulgent smile on her face. Steve smiled back at her, ruefully, and then ended the video call, leaving Natasha alone in the darkness of the warehouse.

She switched off her Stark tablet and packed her glock in a string bag. Then she disassembled the tablet carefully, removing the microscopic tracking device that Stark thought she didn't know was there, and placed it in a plastic bag. In her mind, she pictured them all watching the screen with her movements on it, reassuring themselves that she was safe, and that she wasn't doing anything reckless.

Natasha climbed into the rafters and left the plastic bag carefully on top of one, then climbed back down and hoisted her bag over her shoulder. When she left the warehouse she headed straight for the train station, slouching a bit so that she looked like a girl who was heading back home after a long night. Sure enough no one paid her any mind, and this time she knew for sure that she wasn't being followed. It was a pity; she almost wished that she was. It would make her job easier.

It seemed that her sniper friend was smarter than that.

After getting off the train at the airport, she bought a plane ticket to Germany.

There was still one other concern she had, before she boarded said plane. She went into the bathroom and shut herself into a stall, pulling her tablet and a flash drive out of her pocket. She composed a brief, encrypted message and hit 'send', staring as the little green light appeared in confirmation. Then she plugged the flash drive into the port, watched as the screen went fuzzy, then exited the stall and dumped the tablet into the trash.

Natasha boarded the plane without looking back.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

"How long have we been at war with her?" the blond man asked tiredly.

248 watched the proceedings with unblinking eyes. Even as she did, she counted the bruises along her forearms and on her face. The woman was not kind to her. Madame B. would not tell her what her name was, so 248 just kept referring to her as the woman. But she did not train with anyone else (no one else had killed as of yet), and so 248 could not resent her. Every bruise was a lesson learned. Madame B. told her that much, if nothing else.

The woman was sitting in front of 248. She had her arms crossed. 248 could observe nothing of her beyond physical features and her clothing.

"Too long," the other man admitted reluctantly. "I warned her. I _warned_ —"

Both men cut themselves off abruptly. As one, they glanced first at the woman, and then at 248.

248 did not look at either of them. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the woman's back.

"Go, 248," the woman said. "Back to your room."

248 stood and slipped through the door easily. Her room was not difficult to find in the complex, as '248' was stamped on it in massive numbers. The man in black outside her door did not look at her as she entered, but she heard the telltale 'chink' as the lock slid into place. There was a light switch next to the door. There was a small cot pushed against the wall. Apart from that, the room had nothing. 248 went to her cot and sat on it, aware that her mind was not ready for sleep yet.

There had been one thing that she observed of the woman, she now realized. A tensing of the shoulders, when the two men were griping. 248 ran through a list of adjectives in her mind, trying to determine exactly what it was the woman felt on the subject: determination? Anticipation? Anxiety? She could not decide. Even when the woman gave her a clue, she could not follow it to the answers she sought.

"One day, it will become clear," Madame B. once told her. "Like a path only you can see."

Madame B. did not speak to her about 220. 248 did not know what to think of it. Her actions must have had approval, because she had been learning much from the woman since she killed the girl. But there was no advice on what she was supposed to feel upon taking a life: regret? Remorse? Madame B. usually discouraged the use of those emotions— she recommended anger if she had to feel anything. The woman had once knocked her down to the ground, and then stood and called her 'somber'. She had dislocated 248's shoulder, and told her to make her way to the infirmary herself, or she would come after her with the knife again.

248's fear started to fill her at the memory; her ability to put things in a box was worn down. That meant it was time for sleep.

The next day, combat training was with 243. 243 was also bigger and stronger, like 220, but she was more cautious and less willing to underestimate 248. Fortunately this meant she hesitated, so 248 did not get knocked down as much and did not have as many bruises when she went to bed. She was able to fight for fifteen minutes straight without collapsing now. She was slowly learning how to put the pain and exhaustion in her muscles in a box, too.

The woman did not return for several days.

When she did reappear, she only trained with 248 briefly before she vanished again.

Madame B. came to 248's room that night, sitting on the bed next to her. She did not touch 248— she never touched 248, not in the rough way that the woman did while they trained— and spoke to her quietly, asking her what she was learning, and what she had to teach Madame B. in return.

"I learned that people are not reliable," 248 said.

"Ah." Madame B. smiled at her. Madame B. smiled at her a lot. It was always warm. "That is not quite true, little one. You can always rely on people to be unreliable."

248 did not sleep after that conversation. She paid for refusing to rest in combat training the next day.

The day after that, she was brought to a white room, where many silver instruments lay on a tray. A man in a white coat poked around in her mouth with one, and wrote some things down before he instructed her to do some basic stretching. She did as asked. He then took one of the instruments and told her to stay still. At first she did not understand what was happening, but then she felt her head becoming lighter and watched clumps of hair fall at her feet.

248 was not allowed to look at herself. She was curious about her new appearance, but she resisted the urge to stare at a reflective surface. The men in black would beat her bloody for it. The further they got into their training, the worse the beatings became for any transgressions.

It was five more days before 248 saw the woman. She and the others were being led back to their rooms, and the woman was walking in the other direction. When she saw 248, she did something that 248 had never seen before: she smiled at her, showing gleaming white teeth.

248 did not sleep that night, either.

* * *

 **Paris, France, 2014**

Paris had always held a certain charm.

Still, it made Natasha laugh— the way people idolized the city. Visitors regaled folks back home with stories about its beauty and grace. But every city had an ugly core, and Paris was no different from the rest in that respect. Natasha had first-hand experience on the matter; it was just covered up better here than it was in other cities.

For one thing, she knew two CIA cells here. For another, she knew that there were three Hydra cells stationed in this city. She briefly considered dismantling them, but they wouldn't have the information she needed, and based on the news reports something much worse was headed for them (not that she blamed him). She'd lean back against couch cushions and eat popcorn while watching it all play out on the TV.

After she'd visited some friends first, that is.

The flight had had to stop in Paris after a malfunction was discovered (which was a bit of an odd coincidence, but Natasha used it to her advantage anyway). She still had every intention of eventually going to Germany, but in this case she felt that the smart thing to do would be to dig wherever X marked the spot. Paris was almost definitely one of those places.

(It was also one of the most dangerous places for her to be right now. She had friends here, but she also had 'friends' here.)

She chose a youth hostel that was sandwiched between two high rises, once again hunching her shoulders and using heavily accented French to make it seem like she was a German student on a hitchhiking trip. The clerk bought it easily enough and showed her to a tiny, windowless room— which was exactly the sort of place that she was looking for. No windows for her sniper friend to shoot her through while she slept. A quick sweep for bugs told her that it was clear.

She'd bought a cheap cell phone after leaving the airport, and she used it now to alert her contacts that she was in town. None of them sounded too happy about it. She didn't blame them.

"You are making this difficult for us, Widow," they said.

"Good. If it's difficult for you, then it's difficult for the people who would kill you to get to me."

They didn't protest a whole lot after that.

Natasha added a few notes to her notebook while she sat on her bed in her room, legs crossed. Her door was locked and bolted, though occasionally there were voices— groups of young adults headed out into the city for the night. She'd set up her meetings during the day, knowing that with fewer crowds around there weren't as many obstacles obstructing anyone who might be trying to shoot her through a scope. Playing a crowd to avoid being killed was a skill Natasha had perfected at an early age.

It was raining the next day, but the only sign that showed how much this bothered her was a tiny frown that graced her face when she looked out the door of the hostel. She bought an umbrella at a store a few blocks down before she strode over to the Champs-Elysees, keeping her umbrella low so as to obstruct her face from any onlookers. The most people saw was a pair of ratty sneakers, coupled with skinny jeans and a hoodie. At first glance, her age might have been early twenties instead of thirty.

Her first meeting was scheduled with Edward Constantine, a CIA contact that she once did a favor for before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Considering it was doing that favor (and raising his awareness of who she was) that got her onto S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hit list, Natasha figured that he owed her.

He didn't share the sentiment.

"No, Widow," he snapped at her, restlessly playing with his coffee cup. "I haven't heard anything like that. It's ridiculous, to be frank—"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. turned out to be Hydra after seventy years of providing 'world security'," Natasha deadpanned.

He scowled at her. "You're endangering my entire team by being here."

"So you do know something?"

The server who came over to set down Natasha's tea in front of her gave her a charming smile before returning to her work, unaware that one of Natasha's lethal cuffs was active and pressed up against Constantine's knee. Natasha returned the smile before she looked back at him.

"Are you going to call the men you have in the back room off?"

"God, are you a fucking psychic—?"

"I don't need to be," Natasha said. "I know you. I know your type. I know that the CIA is hunting me just as much as my more personal enemies are. Call them off."

He held her gaze for a few moments, then reached up to the earpiece hidden in his ear and murmured an order in French. Natasha didn't look as two heavyset men exited from behind the counter and left the café, though she could feel their gazes on her. She watched Constantine in case he decided to give them any other signals, but he remained still and silent the entire time.

Of course, still and silent could have been code for something as well, but there was nothing Natasha could do about that. Besides, she doubted that Constantine was smart enough to come up with a meaning for not having a signal.

"We're here because we heard rumors," he explained at last.

"Aren't we all?"

He ignored her bland statement. "There is definitely some kind of terrorist cell operating out of Russia. Supposedly there's a target in Paris that they want. We're here for surveillance— to see if we can get some kind of lock on them, figure out who they are and what their endgame is. No moves have been made yet, but we have assets in key strategic locations around the city. _No_ , I am not telling you where they are."

Natasha could have pressed her cuff against his knee a little harder in order to loosen his tongue, but that wouldn't be necessary. "That's fine. I don't want that, anyway. I want you to bring me in the project."

"Absolutely not," he hissed. "You think I'm an idiot?"

"You don't want me to answer that question."

Constantine leaned back in his seat, looking less angry and more bemused. "You think you're the best _now_ , Romanoff? Every person in every corner in the world knows every dirty little secret you've ever had, and no matter how _good_ you think you are, that makes you almost useless. You can saunter around Europe and pretend you're invincible, but if you know what's good for you you'd better take that cocky attitude down a notch."

"I could pretend to be unnerved by your little hissy fit, if you want," Natasha offered. "Problem is, I have the one bit of proof that I need to refute that statement."

"Enlighten me, please," he sneered, echoing one of the congressmen at her hearing.

This time, Natasha did press her cuff into his knee a bit harder. "I'm alive. So you can do me this one favor and we'll call it even from the time I saved your skin— even though we're really not— or I could leave you at this table acting out all of the symptoms of a heart attack. You're about the right age for it."

Constantine turned ashen as she revealed the full extent of her threat. Being dead with the knowledge that there would be retribution for said death after the fact was one thing. Being dead with the knowledge that the culprit would get away with it was something else. Natasha flashed her cold smile; it was quickly becoming her favorite these days.

"Clock's ticking, Constantine," she said.

"Fine," he grunted. "When do you want to start, Widow?"

"Tomorrow. I have some other errands to run, today." She patted his knee as she finally pulled away, her smile widening at his flinch. "We'll rendezvous at the Musee d'Orsay. Bring your top three with you."

She left a generous tip for the waitress, then stood up and headed for the door. The bell tinkled, signaling her exit as she stepped into the rain. She could feel Constantine trying to scorch her with his gaze all the way past the window, until she stepped out of his line of sight.

Her second contact greeted her much more warmly.

"Natalia!" she exclaimed. The tiny old woman pulled her into a hug, even as she lowered the handgun she held in her grip. "So lovely to see you, it's been too long. You have heard about Andrey, yes? Oh, such a shame."

Agnes had a town home and two daughters who took care of her. Both of them nodded cordially at Natasha as she passed them. It did not escape her notice that both of them had guns somewhere on their person. The younger of the two gave Natasha the same evaluating look that she herself was known for, but whether or not she got the answers she was looking for, Natasha didn't know.

Agnes was the widow of a French pirate and terrorist. After Natasha had assassinated him (for S.H.I.E.L.D), she'd helped Agnes go into protective custody. For some reason Agnes was very fond of the woman who had put a bullet through her husband's skull (she never would tell Natasha why), and she was also very good at keeping in contact with her husband's 'friends'. It paid to have information, Agnes claimed, and Natasha was inclined to agree.

"Yes, yes," she said, once she and Natasha had sat down with cups of tea and Natasha had opened with her usual questions. "Of course I've heard. Who hasn't? It's all over Europe, and I suspect in the United States as well. Even Hydra's on edge. Why is your hair blond like that, anyway? Always did like the red."

Well. Agnes didn't know about Natasha burning away all her masks, then. She knew she probably looked strange, with her now-blond curls piled on top of her head.

"No confirmations, though," Natasha said.

"No," sighed Agnes. "They'd have to do something very dramatic in order for that to be the case. If it's all true, then they're being very careful about it. Planting the seed of fear, keeping everyone unstable by refusing to confirm it. Including, it seems, you, my dear."

"I have my reasons."

"Is it personal? Personal is a mistake, Natalia."

 _Is it personal when you have no choice?_

"No, no, of course not," she said, smiling cordially. "I'm doing a favor for a friend."

That could have meant anybody, really, but Agnes nodded, appearing to buy it.

"There are whispers," she said, lowering her voice. "That perhaps something might be happening here."

Now there was a surprise: a chance that Constantine's intel might have been right, for once. Natasha listened while Agnes recounted everything she'd heard on the matter: there was going to be a bombing, someone was going to be shot in front of the Obelisk, the metro system was going to be abruptly shut down. Natasha wondered if it was opening night for these people.

Agnes fell silent.

"Sounds like this is where I need to be, then," Natasha said at last.

"Hmm." Agnes smiled at something behind Natasha, and she turned around to see the younger of Agnes' daughters staring at her. She knew that look all too well; it seemed that, while Agnes had no idea that Natasha was compromised, her daughter had more of a clue.

"I should get going," she lied smoothly. She was in no hurry, but the daughter looked like she wanted nothing more than to shoot her brains out. She probably wouldn't be able to, but Natasha didn't really want to have a shootout in Agnes' home.

She went to a store on the other side of the city in order to buy a burner phone, then placed a quick phone call to May, informing her that the package she'd offered up back in Madrid was no longer useful, though if Coulson had any use for cadavers he was welcome to it.

"He's a little preoccupied at the moment," Melinda replied, "but thanks for the offer."

"Have any of the new recruits offered you coffee, yet?"

(Clint had apparently done that, when he first started training at S.H.I.E.L.D. He claimed he was still traumatized by the experience.)

"Many of them died the other day," May stated flatly. "We could use your help around here."

"I'm busy. Ask Barton."

May went silent after that, so Natasha let out a long sigh. "He still doesn't know, does he?"

"He seems content enough to be doing the occasional Avengers gig. Phil doesn't want to bother him."

"Morse is on the team now, isn't she?"

"I like her."

Natasha pinched the bridge of her nose. Coulson's team was trying to hold the new S.H.I.E.L.D. together, and Natasha appreciated that, but she also knew that it was like trying to swim upriver. There were still a disturbing number of active Hydra cells out there, many of them centered in the US— which was where, of course, Coulson's team also happened to be centered.

"Her ex-husband is on the team as well."

Even better.

"Clint's happy enough Avenging," Natasha conceded. "He occasionally helps out Steve when he's looking for the Winter Soldier, so he's not too bored. Sometimes he disappears from the tower for a few days and comes back and acts like he's really cool because no one noticed, but he's been going to dismantle the weaker Hydra cells." _Or visiting his wife._

"Sounds like a vacation."

"Take care, Melinda," Natasha said, and meant it.

She hung up and threw the burner phone in a gutter.

* * *

 **Triskelion, Washington DC, 2009**

"I like my padded cell," Natasha said conversationally. "It's cozy."

Clint didn't smile.

The walls were white, the sheets were white, and Natasha's horrible hospital clothes were white. Then there was her hair, like a blood stain on the wall, and the gleaming silver of her handcuffs. There was a faint outline of rouge on the edges, where her skin chafed against them. Clint sat in a chair beside her bed, his dark uniform an even more glaring contrast than her hair.

"Nat."

"Clint," she said. "If I take this seriously, that makes it real."

"It is real," he replied. "It happened. For the first time in over two years, you had a goddamn flashback. I thought maybe you'd be more adult about it and agree to talk to the therapists, like Fury wants you to. You know he isn't going to let you back on active duty until you do."

Natasha laid her head back against the headboard. Breathed.

"Has nobody told you what happened yet?" Now he was pushing her. He knew what it would do. "You don't remember waking up from passing out from blood loss, speaking in Russian. You don't remember screaming some woman's name, over and over, like you were possessed. You don't remember almost knifing down a couple of terrified medics, and then _looking me in the eye and saying that death had marked me._ "

Natasha didn't remember any of it.

"Well I do threaten to kill you on a daily basis."

Clint let out a shaky, frustrated sigh. "You know what, just— fuck it. I'm outta here."

He wasn't really. He came back a few hours later and began what he later called 'the most epic staring contest outside the one Fury and Coulson had when I first brought you back'. Natasha didn't give an inch, and after three hours he sighed.

"Alright," he breathed. "Alright."

Natasha nodded at him once, then opened the book he'd brought her. She didn't like Jane Eyre, but she'd asked for it anyway. It was something close to a reminder.

He was half asleep, face pressed into her thigh, when she spoke.

"I know I'll eventually have to go talk to the psychiatrists. I'll go insane if Fury doesn't give me work."

Clint turned his eyes up to her, but he didn't say anything.

"It's not for the reasons you think," she admitted. "I'm not ashamed of losing myself. I've accepted that it's going to be a possibility for the rest of my life. So what happened, happened. There's nothing I can do to about it now.

"It was the memory, Clint." And for the first time in her life, Natasha couldn't keep the wistfulness out of her voice. She couldn't stop herself from showing an emotion, even if that emotion was desire (did that really count as an emotion? Natasha was hardly an expert on the subject. Sometimes it was remarkable how much of a child she still was). "It was a memory that isn't in any of the files, that wasn't driven into my skull with a proverbial drill. It was _mine_."

Mine. There was so little in her life that she could apply that description to. And the worst part was that it was gone again— slipping through her fingers like water. Would she ever have anything for herself?

"Okay," was all Clint said. "So tell them that, and then hope to hell they don't make you explain what the memory was."

They probably would. Natasha knew that. It was the reason she had been so reluctant.

"Tell Coulson I'll submit to analysis tomorrow."

"Can do."

It was a day for firsts, it seemed. Natasha went into the depths of her mind, where everything was catalogued and quantified, and stuck a new label over her mental file of Clint Barton:

 _Friend_.


	4. Chapter 4: These Boys Wanted to Eat You

**A/N:** Alright! We've got a little bit more action in this chapter. Some questions will be answered. Also, everyone please welcome Sharon Carter to the stage.

Also, you may have noticed that some of the phrases in previous chapters seemed awkward. That's because apparently doesn't know what italics are. They should all be fixed now.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Paris, France, 2014**

"Elliot, Hades, June," said Constantine. "This is _former_ Agent Romanoff."

Natasha asked for his three best. The youngest one (Elliot, barely more than a girl) was gaping at her like she was in a catatonic state.

Goody.

She turned and raised an eyebrow at Constantine at his emphasis on 'former'. Never mind that it was true— there was no need to make it sound like an insult. He didn't react.

"Morning," she drawled, turning her attention back to the three. "Hey, did your boss give you time to tour the museum before coming to this meeting? 'Cause it's a good idea to have a hobby outside of spy business. I like analyzing classic literature."

Elliot's catatonic state was contagious, it seemed.

"Enough of the bullshit, Romanoff," Constantine snapped. "You said you needed help. We can't help unless you tell us what you want us to do."

"Oh, that reminds me," Natasha said, snapping her fingers. "I found out that your intel on the terrorist organization was actually legitimate. Kudos to you."

Huh. Maybe she really _could_ be as big of an asshole as Stark. It was kind of fun. Just not very productive, unfortunately, which was why Natasha tended to not take that route too often.

"Which one of you handles the tech?" she asked.

Elliot, again.

"Good. You're going to set up shop at the address on this drive. Bring your laptop, and load this into it," she instructed, placing the device in Elliot's outstretched palm. "It contains an algorithm that a friend of mine wrote. It'll allow you to trace all lines of communication in the city. I want you to isolate all of the encrypted ones, then narrow it down further to the ones that aren't being used by the French government or the other CIA cell that's here."

"There's another cell here?" Elliot asked, before she slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide.

Natasha smiled at her. It was a bit nicer than her usual smile.

"I mean, uh, right away, Agent Romanoff."

Elliot scurried away, looking like a cross between having to go to the bathroom and being delirious. Her expression wasn't unlike the one Dr. Selvig wore in the footage of him running naked around Stonehenge.

Natasha looked at Constantine. He slapped an earcomm device into her hand without looking at her. She spoke to the guy named Hades next (was it really a codename, or did he just think it was cool?) while she fitted it into her ear.

"You and June—" (June was also a man; Natasha sort of appreciated the gender-ambiguous use of names) "—are going to stay here until Elliot has something. Stroll around the museum for a bit, wait until you hear from me. I'd recommend pretending to be a couple, in the meantime. Arm in arm means fewer people will look twice at you because they'd believe they were intruding on your moment of intimacy, which always leads to awkwardness."

To their credit, neither looked fazed by the idea. Natasha studied them carefully for a moment, wondering briefly if they'd already slept together. The answer was no, but judging by the looks on their faces, they'd considered it. "If you hear from me, it's going to be with a location for one— only one— of you to go and investigate. Off you go; do couple things."

They obeyed without a word, June leaning his head against Hades' shoulder.

"Nice picks, those two," Natasha said. "And Elliot, though it's clear she hasn't done a whole lot of field work."

Constantine shrugged. "She's my best technician."

"We're gonna go for a walk, in the meantime," Natasha said. "There's an office building about five blocks east of here. You're armed?"

Constantine gave her a look.

Natasha had showed up in a business-casual outfit she'd put together the day before. It served its purpose: she did not look out of place as she strode next to Constantine in his dress shirt and slacks. The weather was a gem compared to the day before, the sunlight glittering on the water of the Seine. Her hair was still blond, but now pin-straight as it had been when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. She felt the fabric of her sleeves brush against her cuffs, hidden beneath the shirt.

They were about ten paces away from the entrance to the office building when Elliot chirped in her ear.

"I've got it narrowed to about five signals, Agent Romanoff. Um… I think one is an amateur hacker trying to talk to a friend in Sweden… but I can't make out what any of the rest are."

"Give me the rundown."

Elliot rattled off a list of places using street addresses; none of them were public buildings or places of particular reputability. Natasha selected the two that were in more strategic areas of the city, and then spoke:

"Hades, June. Now's the time to split up."

She instructed Hades to go to one address, then the other. She didn't feel the need to give instructions on how to go their separate ways without making it look conspicuous; they seemed to have a handle on it. Constantine slowed to a stop, reaching the office building just ahead of her, and frowned at her.

"Anything I should know about this place?"

"It's where several underling Hydra agents with no combat training work," Natasha said. Even evil organizations bent on world domination needed office workers, it seemed.

Constantine looked like was trying his damn best not to be impressed. The result was just that he looked constipated.

"After you," he offered, holding the door open for her.

Natasha walked in, feeling a sudden rush. She could feel the building excitement and adrenaline in her blood, and recognized her hunter's instincts crying out all too easily, eager to start chasing down prey. It often happened when she narrowed her focus to a person (or group of people) that she instinctively _knew_ were weaker than she was. She managed to temper the sensation; it never paid to overestimate herself.

"Hi," she said to the lady at the front desk. "I didn't make an appointment."

Before the woman could respond, Natasha had vaulted the desk (ignoring the wide eyes filling up with incredulity and then terror) and neatly gathered her into a headlock, pressing her cuff into her neck. "We're going to go talk to your coworkers, okay? I'm pretty sure at least one of them will be able to figure out who I am."

It was easy for Natasha to haul her into a large room with dingy cubicles where mousy people were hunched over computers. She took a moment to marvel over how they had no idea how lucky they were, only getting desk jobs with Hydra, before she signaled at Constantine and he very calmly fired several warning shots.

It took a moment to register the sound, but once the workers did, they fell immediately silent. No one tapped even a single key, and no one cried out for help or screamed. The clerk from the front desk was stiff in Natasha's grip, but otherwise she didn't struggle. Natasha assessed expressions, muscles twitches, eye movements, and breathing patterns, and the overwhelming conclusion based on the feedback she got back was resignation.

Good. She could use that.

"Any of you have level two clearance or above?"

There wasn't enough fear, though. They were more worried about betraying their masters than they were about her.

"You know, nobody needs to know I was here," Natasha casually remarked. She felt something stirring deep in the pit of her stomach— another notch, another mark in her ledger. "You could just help me out. Or I could kill your co-worker. Either one works, really."

"None of us have above level two clearance," the clerk gritted out. British, with just a hint of desperation. "There's nothing you can use here! Hydra's forgotten we exist, you can't—"

"If Hydra forgot about you, then you would help me."

While she was speaking, Natasha's ear comm emitted June's voice. "Nothing in location one, Agent. Moving on to location three."

"Copy that," she replied.

"What do you _want_?" cried the clerk.

"Info," Natasha answered without missing a beat. "Something's going to go down here, today, in this city. If the CIA knows about it, it means that Hydra almost certainly does. You're one of the few cells left here after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, so it's not a hard conclusion to make that you'd know something about it."

"You can't know that," someone else spoke up. "It's got even our bosses on edge."

That was all Natasha needed to hear, really. She kept her cold mask firmly in place, but she was surprised; something that Hydra was worried about? Maybe her concerns weren't unfounded after all. She really, really hated it when her hunches were right, even though said hunches usually saved her ass.

She released the clerk, letting the woman stagger away from her, before signaling at Constantine again. He took point while she backed up, eyes never leaving the terrified workers. There was no sign of a group of Hydra thugs waiting to ambush them, so none of the office workers had raised the alarm. Not that that would matter, by the end of the day. Natasha tucked that piece of information firmly away in another corner of her brain, this one marked 'ledger'.

"You're just going to leave a functioning Hydra cell," Constantine stated flatly, once they were outside.

"It's assured self-destruction," Natasha responded. "Once the higher-ups find out that the Black Widow took their front desk clerk hostage and used her to get valuable information out of their workers, they're going to deem it a failure. They're going to use the appropriate punishment. You know that the head honcho here is ruthless, even when it comes to his own followers. There won't be anything left of this place by the end of the night. An empty office building, desks cleared out, and thirty-three pencil pushers will disappear off the face of the Earth and never be seen again."

Constantine forgot his CIA training and turned to stare at her with something between horror and astonishment on his face.

"You _knew_ that, going in there."

Natasha talked into her earpiece, confirming the fourth location on the list with Elliot. Before she could start steering Constantine towards it, though, Hades interrupted.

"There's something here. I can't make sense of it, Agent Romanoff."

"We're on our way," she said. She felt her spine coil tightly in readiness. Every inch of her was screaming for a fight, for something to tear apart, but no part of her let that show through. Maybe if Constantine could have seen what her body was hiding, he wouldn't be surprised at how she dealt with the Hydra cell.

"Shit," he breathed. He still wasn't over it. "All of that for what? Not even a confirmation?"

"It's as good as," Natasha said, shrugging. "Hydra must have some level of skill to have infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. without being detected for so long. They're smart. If they believe something's up, that's practically a guarantee."

She was lucky that compartmentalization was her way of life. She wasn't sure she could deal with the consequences of her actions as well as Constantine was if it wasn't.

Location number two was an old apartment building, built over the area of Paris where the catacombs snaked underground. There were still tenants living there, but all of them seemed to be reclusive— curtains were drawn over almost every window. Natasha took a moment to appreciate the old school architecture and thought about how in America the place would be torn down and rebuilt into some ugly, redbrick town home complex. Suburban tastes were the worst.

"There's something written on the wall here," Hades crackled in her ear. "I'm not 100 percent sure what it is, but I believe it's some kind of Slavic language. I've sent a picture to Elliot; she'll be translating it for us as soon as she can."

"Sorry," Elliot chimed in. "I'm getting a bad Wi-fi connection and I don't have translation software installed on my computer— I usually just Google it. It might take me a while."

"That's fine," Natasha said. "Hades, what floor are you on? And June, when you arrive at the location make it look like you're a tenant. Make sure we're inside before you enter."

"Copy that."

Just before Natasha could place her hand on the handle to the front door, her danger awareness spiked. It was gone a moment later, but after she did enter she primed her Widow's Bite just in case. It never hurt to be prepared. Especially when a sniper tried to shoot her a few days ago.

They climbed to the third floor, as instructed by Hades. Natasha made a note that the third floor meant a decreased chance of escape if they happened to be cornered. A three-story drop meant a strong possibility of a broken limb, and that rendered all chances of getting away almost null. The halls were narrow, too, which meant that evasion would be difficult.

She sort of wished she had Steve's shield with her right then.

Hades nodded at them when they approached apartment 32, then gestured for them to enter.

"The writing's in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain," he explained. "The apartment door was unlocked. There were definitely signs of a forced entry, and I don't know if it's a hoax or an intimidation factor, but the message looks like it was written in blood."

"What a cliché," Natasha muttered. For once, Constantine looked like he agreed with her.

"No translation yet," Elliot called in. "I'm working on it."

Natasha eyed all of the possible hiding places and swept the room for bugs. She'd checked the other apartments on the floor, and all the doors were locked, which meant that she would have some kind of warning if someone who was hiding in another unit decided to attack them. She found nothing remarkable, so she joined Constantine in the bathroom after he called, "I can't make heads or tails of it. We were only trained in French and German before this assignment."

Natasha moved to stand beside him, appraising the wall in the shower stall. The moment it registered, there were two pops in quick succession, and something spattered her from her right. Natasha whirled around and dropped to the floor, diving at an assailant's legs—

Except there were no legs there.

( _Look behind you, Natalia._ )

The attacker had jumped back from her attack, and Natasha found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

* * *

 **Once upon a time…**

There was a girl.

But she wasn't a girl. She was a monster, hiding under human skin. The monster was a greedy, swollen thing, saliva dripping from its teeth, blood dripping from its claws. But no one saw it yet. It had to be coaxed out, drawn out by pain and perseverance.

The person who brought it out was also a monster. The girl saw that right away. The monster came towards her, looming over her, and she shrank back in utter fear. She tried to wrap her own shadow around herself and behaved with cowardice, like most monsters do. She ran. She hid. She feared, because she knew that the monster would swallow her whole, and it would be her blood dripping from its claws.

But the monster did not do that.

The monster cradled the girl. It hurt the girl, but it also helped her monster to come out more— to become stronger, until she no longer needed the fear. Until she forgot the cowardice. Until her shadow was banished behind her, and she let the monster roam the room with red walls, free to howl and rip things apart without abandon. Over time, the girl learned to pack the monster away so that people only saw the girl, and then she would let it out when it was needed.

It was easy.

It was wrong.

Then the monster who helped her vanished. No, that wasn't quite right. The monster who helped her was shattered, its deadly edges ground into dust, leaving only a woman. A woman who hid in the skin of a monster. And the monster who hid in the skin of a girl was betrayed, because it thought they were the same. It thought maybe it had a companion in this cruel world. But whenever the woman's monster started to build itself back up again, the woman would destroy it. Ruthlessly. Mercilessly. The monster who looked like a girl screamed every time it happened, because the woman was murdering her friend.

(What the monster/girl didn't understand was that the woman knew the truth: she was a monster. She was a woman. There was no choosing between one or the other.)

And so the monster who hid in a girl was alone.

So it made a promise: one day, it would find the woman, and it would devour her whole. Just as the woman had once threatened to do the same.

* * *

 **Paris, France, 2014**

Natasha didn't waste any time. She drove one of her cuffs upwards into the attacker's wrist, letting loose an electric pulse. The attacker twitched and fell back a step, long enough for Natasha to grab the gun from their numb fingers. The window was open— and wasn't she a grade-A dumbass, for not checking the window? She pointed the gun at the attacker's hooded head (well, well, well…) and fired.

It should've been a kill shot. On any other day, and with any other person, it would have been.

The sniper twisted out of the way of the bullet.

It was a quick, sinuous movement— like a cobra striking, but Natasha was almost thrown off by it. It had been _fast_ , and that kind of speed should not have been physically possible. Undeterred, she fired two more shots, both of which her target successfully evaded. Her next squeeze of the trigger brought only a click, and then the sniper was on her.

Natasha threw the gun at her temple; her opponent batted it away and used the momentum from the movement to go into a roundhouse kick, which she leaned back to avoid. Her unequal weight distribution would be taken advantage of next, so Natasha went into a backflip, landing close to the bathroom door in a crouch. Her assailant was already coming after her, throwing out a quick punch that she blocked easily. There was nothing in her mind, apart from the roar of adrenaline and her instincts, which told her to finish it.

Her opponent's next punch was aimed for her throat. Natasha caught it (with some effort— the sniper was strong, on top of everything else) and twisted as hard as she could, hearing wrist bones pop. There was a loud 'crunch', and then Natasha was shocked to find herself going down on one knee. Her opponent's foot had been driven into her kneecap, and she could feel bones grinding against each other uncomfortably. Dislocated.

While she rolled to the other side of the room as quickly as possible, she assessed her opponent. Right hand was hanging limply to the side. Her attacker had willingly sacrificed their right hand in order to take out her left leg. Even with waves of pain shooting up her thigh, Natasha couldn't stop herself from being mildly impressed.

It also forced her to reassess her own situation: her chances of surviving this fight (her opponent had made their intent to kill clear) had dropped by about 30 percent. She could fight on one leg, but it would leave her with limited movement and give her enemy more openings. Already they were following her, trying to get her with a roundhouse kick before attempting to uppercut her jaw. Natasha danced around both moves, carefully avoiding putting her weight on her leg.

She vaulted backwards over the couch, successfully keeping enough distance between herself and her opponent that she was able to put her concern for her leg on autopilot. Blocking another punch, she switched the mode on her Widow's Bite and aimed, pressing her thumbs to the touch sensors stuck to her palms.

The dart hit her opponent in the thigh— for once, her speedy adversary wasn't quite able to move out of the way in time. Natasha sent out a silent thank you for the advantages of having concealed weapons.

Hoodie guy back-flipped over the couch, ripping the dart out midair. They flung it at Natasha with startling precision, but Natasha raised her other wrist so that it bounced off the cuff. Her opponent wasn't as disoriented as they should've been, which was a cause for even greater alarm. Still, Natasha was confident that there was still a reasonable chance that she could finish this. Then interrogations would begin, and answers would finally be forthcoming.

"How much would you say you're susceptible to shock factor?"

Low. Gravelly. Female. American accent. Vaguely familiar— not familiar enough to immediately place; Natasha had to search through her database of people she knew in her mind to find the match. Before she could complete her search, however, the woman pushed back the hood.

The hair was now more white-blond than dirty blond, but the face was recognizable. It was identical to the one she'd come across eight years ago. Natasha was not susceptible to shock factor (no surprise was able to put her out of commission), but she came pretty damn close this time.

Lana didn't give her time to react to her presence, because suddenly she was practically on top of Natasha. Her punches were stronger than before, and she was faster, and Natasha's attempt at compartmentalizing her leg was beginning to fail. She managed to land another kick in the same knee, and Natasha grunted but miraculously stayed on her feet.

There was a desk lamp to her left. Grab. Aim for the head.

Lana's face twisted into a snarl as she stopped it easily, ripping it from Natasha's grasp as though it were nothing, and clubbed it across her temple.

Natasha let herself drop, hitting her hip harder than she'd meant to. Stupid. Damn it, she'd been stupid. She'd underestimated her opponent. Lana hadn't been going easy on her earlier, but she hadn't been putting forth all of her effort, either. At least with her on a different level, she'd have just a split-second to regroup and re-analyze the situation.

Warm liquid down the side of her face: blood from the temple. Still conscious, though.

Lana, foot lifted. Intent was probably to crush her throat with her boot.

Knee: completely out. Putting any weight on it would be a death sentence.

Advantages? Natasha wondered. The boot was coming down. Her mind, spiked on adrenaline and survival instinct, was running at a mile a minute, taking in every detail of her surroundings. Her back was against the couch— no rolling out of the way. The drug she'd shot Lana with seemed to have no effect on her.

 _Seemed to._

Lana was a liar. Liars hid their weaknesses by default. Which meant that there was a slim chance that she wouldn't figure out what Natasha planned to do next.

Other options? No.

"Setting: sting!" she yelled.

Lana froze briefly, a tiny moment of hesitation, and it was enough for Natasha. Her cuffs weren't actually voice activated, but Lana thinking that they were gave her time to manually set them. As the foot started its descent again, she jammed her cuff into Lana's shin and pressed down on the touch sensor.

Lana jolted violently, her foot going astray and landing on Natasha's other, outstretched arm instead. There was a snap, followed by more pain, which she vainly attempted to shut away along with her knee pain. It was a clean break, at least, and she took comfort in that fact before she was hauling herself up and jamming the cuff attached to the broken arm into Lana's stomach.

Lana didn't make a sound, and it was eerie, watching her twitch, but Natasha could only keep it up for so long. She released her and limped out into the hallway as quickly as she could, sliding down the banister all three floors and bursting out the front door.

 _Get out of sight. Disappear._

 _Bang._

There was a blinding pain in her shoulder— the shoulder that still wasn't fully healed from after being shot by the Winter Soldier. She looked behind her to see June aiming his CIA-issue gun at her, a dark warning in his eyes. In that single moment, Natasha understood just how deep a pile of shit she was in.

She reset her cuff. She shot him with a dart. Unlike Lana, he went down.

 _Hide_.

There was a dumpster in an alleyway. Natasha couldn't afford to— not with an open shoulder wound— but if Lana found her she was a dead woman.

Two seconds later, a blond woman in a hoodie went sprinting past her hiding place.

Natasha waited a full fifteen minutes before she emerged. She inspected the bullet wound, not wincing as she probed it and finding that the bullet had passed cleanly through it. Stitching it back up would be difficult (she'd need a place with a mirror) and she would do a shit job of it, but it would be better than nothing. She could spend the rest of the time berating herself for being a dumbass. She spent the next moment popping her knee into place, biting her lip as she did so. The arm needed to be splinted, but that would have to be done later.

The message came back to her then, and she felt herself growing cold.

 _Look behind you, Natalia._

 _(Welcome back to the Red Room.)_

* * *

 **Paris, France, 2014**

"Alright, listen up people."

Sharon wondered when her life had changed into a Bond movie. Oh, right— three months ago, when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell.

The base in Paris was only temporary, and not very comfortable— five of them stuffed into a room with computer monitors and stacks of paperwork. Sharon herself was cleared to be an asset if the one they were working with didn't come through, but for the moment she was on monitoring duty. The man in charge (Cranston) was glaring around the room, nostrils flaring like an angry horse.

"We have a bit of an emergency, and new orders," he announced. "Drop everything and start searching for former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Natasha Romanoff."

Movement in the room stilled. There wasn't a single person there who did not know exactly who that was (hell, there were few people in the entire world who didn't know). The reaction wasn't all that different from the way wizards reacted to someone saying Voldemort's name in Harry Potter— though as far as Sharon knew, Romanoff wasn't someone you'd classify as a 'bad guy'. None of the Avengers were, no matter what they had been before.

"I want all mobile devices scanned…"

Sharon had a massive sense of déjà vu. Her boss's words were almost exactly like Sitwell's when he was instructing S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to start hunting down Captain Rogers. Mechanically her hands reached for her keyboard, but she stilled herself, doubt suddenly creeping in through the cracks in her resolve. She didn't like working for the C.I.A.; it just happened to be her only option at the moment. The other was being shut in the secretive government facility where all of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had been impounded.

"Are we allowed to ask why, sir?" she asked, her voice quiet but still somehow managing to ring out across the room.

Several pairs of eyes turned to her, but Sharon was adept at ignoring them (she was on the receiving end of strange or mistrustful looks often enough). Cranston looked at her; his face was mostly unreadable, but Sharon could see the glint of suspicion in his eyes. Trust was hard to come by these days, but that was fine— Sharon didn't trust many people anymore, anyway.

Not that she ever had.

"She just took out half of the other C.I.A. team that was stationed here," he said finally. "They were last in an apartment building on the west side of the city, so start your search there. From what the surviving agent was able to gather, she led them inside as part of a trap, then took them out."

Okay. Well. Killing C.I.A. agents was a pretty bad thing to do. It was also a pretty stupid thing to do. Natasha Romanoff did not strike Sharon as being stupid.

She let it go for the moment, turning back to her monitor without further comment.

Unsurprisingly, they weren't able to get a hit on Romanoff. The others were all dumbfounded, but Sharon was well aware that the reputation of Black Widow was not just something out of an action movie; if she didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be found. A part of her was relieved; Rogers trusted her, and that had to count for something. She didn't like to think about what it would mean if his judgment was off. There was also the fact that Romanoff had willingly dumped everyone about herself onto the Internet. That move took an unusual kind of bravery.

Five hours they all sat there, and none of them found anything.

When Cranston told them to pack up for the night, he pulled Sharon aside.

"How much do you know about Romanoff?" he asked.

What Sharon knew about Natasha Romanoff could barely make up a sentence. That was the norm for most in S.H.I.E.L.D.; they knew she existed, they knew she was an Avenger, but other than that all records on the Black Widow were sealed unless you were at level 10. Unlike much of the nosy U.S. population, Sharon had neglected to read up on Romanoff after her files were released; tempting as it was, she felt like it was a gross invasion of the woman's privacy. The thought of reading about every detail of Romanoff's life when she had never even met her was disturbing.

She didn't say all that to Cranston, but he seemed to get the gist of it. Not that he cared.

"Read up on her," he told her gruffly. "Tomorrow you're going after her. We need an asset in place who knows S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

Sharon only nodded, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut.

Regardless of her feelings on the matter— her feelings about Romanoff's past actions, or her present actions, or who she was connected to— there was one thing that Sharon knew for certain: getting involved would only lead to trouble.

So, naturally, she was getting involved.

* * *

 **Paris, France, 2014**

'Hiding place' turned out to be the cheapest motel Natasha could find, where the receptionist looked sleepy enough to not question the darkened fabric of her black blazer. Or her pale face. Or the dark circles beneath her eyes which said that she was on the verge of passing out from blood loss.

She'd been able to put pressure on the entry wound, but could do nothing about the exit but let it bleed. She'd broken into a tattoo parlor to steal needles and bought some dental floss at a sketchy-looking drugstore, along with a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She'd cursed when she looked in a mirror and saw that some of the blood had gotten on her white-blond hair, and had to tuck it into her blazer as well to hide it. She'd even had enough foresight to wash the blood from her head wound off her face.

As far as Natasha could tell, she wasn't showing signs of an infection yet. She shrugged off her blazer first before biting her lip to keep from crying out as she pulled off the undershirt. She inspected the ugly wound in the tiny bathroom, noting how it had ripped straight through her scar from the Winter Soldier's bullet. The blood from the entrance wound had stopped, but the exit wound was still sluggishly leaking out red. Using her other arm, she grabbed one of the hotel's towels and pressed it to her shoulder, grimacing.

Just her luck that she'd forgotten to buy booze at the drugstore.

Natasha waited twenty minutes before checking it again; the bleeding had stopped.

She plopped the towel in the sink and filled it with water, wishing that she had something cleaner as she washed out both sides and poured rubbing alcohol on the needle. Infection was almost a guarantee at this point, but Natasha had already accepted that she would probably have to ride it out in the hotel room. It wouldn't surprise her if she had a mild concussion from the lamp being slammed into her head.

Natasha breathed steadily during the stitching process and ran through every S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency protocol she knew, but thinking of that only left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth, so instead she categorized everything she knew about her fellow Avengers. It was something she'd done a million times before, but it always seemed to have a calming effect on her. It should've been an invasion of privacy, but Natasha saw it more as getting to know them without actually having to interact with them.

It was arduous, and there were moments when she was certain she would wake up on the floor, drooling, but she managed to stay conscious.

It was much the same for the head wound, but shorter. Popping her knee back into place was one of the first things Natasha had done once she'd been certain that Lana was no longer pursuing her, though it was still sore. The arm was tougher; she had to break one of the legs off of the hotel chair (she'd pay them back later), and she couldn't suppress a grunt when she reset the bone and tied the arm to the leg using strips of her shirt. Somehow the crappy motel still had an ice machine, and soon enough she had a makeshift icepack pressed against her knee while she reclined back in the lumpy bed.

Still no sign of a fever. Natasha had never had a fever from a deep wound like this before, but then again she'd only been shot two other times in her life. Clint got fevers frequently, but he'd apparently lost count of the number of injuries he'd gotten on missions. Her mind was slower than usual, sluggish due to the amount of blood she'd lost. Hunger was going to become a liability soon, if she didn't watch out, and she could only subsist on terrible tap water for so long.

Eventually Natasha forced herself to take a painstaking shower, before fishing everything she had with her out of her clothes. Fake ID, marking her as a French student. A credit card under the same name. Her ever-present glock, along with the knife she kept in her thigh holster. Her Widow's Bite. Her little notebook. Her wounded pride.

It was barely anything. Everything else that might have been useful was back at the hostel, and she had a feeling that Lana knew to look there. She'd been careful to avoid places that looked more modern, in case they had surveillance systems. That was a risk she couldn't afford to take.

At 7:00, she went back to the drugstore and use their microwave to heat up some soup for herself. She had to hide her arm in her old jacket. She also bought a pair of scissors and some hair dye, well aware that with the CIA now on the lookout for her she'd need a new disguise. She went to a local boutique and bought herself a leather jacket, along with a pair of skinny jeans and combat boots. It wasn't the polar opposite of the businesswoman look she'd been pulling before, but it was better than nothing.

Back to the motel. Natasha stared in the mirror. Her hair had been getting too long, anyway.

An hour later, a brunette with a bob cut was sitting on the bed, scrawling in her little notebook. The entire thing was in Russian as a precaution, but owing to her not inconsiderable paranoia, Natasha had given it a second layer of security by writing it in a code that she'd taught herself in her days before S.H.I.E.L.D.

 _The event was not a random assassination. The event was me._

 _The C.I.A. now think I murdered their agents._

 _Lana is with RR._

Her hand paused over the last one, then she added:

 _Look behind you, Natalia._

 _(Welcome back to the Red Room.)_

So. That begged the question: how many people had known the truth, and had lied to her when she interrogated them the past couple of months?

After thinking it over, Natasha reluctantly concluded that all of them had been telling the truth (or what they believed to be the truth). None of them had actually thought that the Red Room was back. It was a Russian myth, a legend; many in the intelligence community were under the impression that it was just a scary story that was told to keep people in line during the Cold War, not unlike the Winter Soldier. Natasha had known better, and when the whispers started, she'd picked up on them like a bloodhound scenting its prey.

(A small part of her, the part that she never let see the light of day, was screaming denial: they couldn't be back. They couldn't be back. Her oldest nightmare, and it still had its claws in her.)

Was Lana always an agent? Or had the Red Room taken her more recently?

Natasha concluded it was the former. Lana's movements were too easy, too natural to be anything but ingrained in her. That kind of thing took decades, not just a few months or years. She was also probably of Russian descent, in spite of her perfect American accent and how she had taken to their mannerisms like she'd been born and raised in the Midwest. It explained a lot: how Natasha couldn't accept that it was a coincidence that Lana had come looking for her, how she was reading that Lana was dangerous even though there was no threat from her.

What was Lana's mission then? Recon? She would have shot Natasha in the head, if the goal had been killing her.

Natasha wasn't all that eager to ask her; whatever Lana's objective had been, her goal now was to put a bullet in her brain.

The next thing she turned her mind to was her current situation.

The entire thing had been a setup, and a brilliant one at that. Stir up concern in France about some 'big thing' that a potential terrorist group might carry out. It would attract the attention of the C.I.A., but it had also attracted Natasha, who was on the hunt for that kind of thing. Was the plane malfunction just a coincidence? She wouldn't be surprised if Lana was somehow responsible for her flight being diverted, too. On one hand, there was some admiration. On the other, Natasha wanted to hit herself for not seeing it sooner.

So: lure Natasha Romanoff to a location of Lana's choosing. Kill both C.I.A. agents with her once they got there, so that it looked like Natasha had been the one responsible. If, for whatever reason, Lana failed to kill her, then she could let the C.I.A. do her work for her instead. It was a clever trap, and one that Natasha wouldn't have an easy time escaping.

She'd faced worse odds. She had, after all, been one of six people to stand up against an entire army of aliens.

One thing at a time, then.

Natasha scribbled a few more things in her journal.

 _Isolate the threat. Information on 'Lana' is crucial._

 _Take down the threat (initial plan? Other options?)_

 _Possibility of using her as bait to draw out RR._

Natasha closed her eyes, sagging and feeling that her awareness of the wound in her shoulder was growing. She had yet to become feverish, which was lucky, but that wouldn't matter if the pain became bad enough. Using it against other people meant being intimately acquainted with what it could do to them (not that she enjoyed thinking about the implications of that. She remembered Steve wincing when she said something along those lines, once).

Her breath hissed out her teeth. She—

 _—was chasing someone, who always managed to dash out of sight just before she could focus on them for too long. There was a gun in her hand, but she didn't take a shot, instead playing the part of menacing predator instead. They were fast, and they were quick and light on their feet. Hmph. See if they stayed that way after she—_

—gasped like a dying man, watching helplessly as the ceiling came back into focus but unable to move. Sleep paralysis wasn't something that came to call often, but this was the only thing she could compare it to. Natasha tried to speak her name and number aloud, but it was like her jaw was super-glued shut, and then blackness hoarded the corners of her vision and—

 _—punch. Kick. Slam into the ground._

 _Too easy._

 _Natalia let up her opponent, noticing that aside from the cool indifference on that face, there was a rage, also. That was interesting. Rage was not a trait she often saw._

 _"You—"_

"—okay?"

Natasha sank her teeth into her lip, aware that she must've been making some kind of noise, and taking notice of the shadow under the door. In her brief moment of lucidity, her alarms screamed at her, and she grimaced before letting out the most obscene moan she knew how to make.

Pause. Footsteps scurrying away from the door—

 _—opened. The guards. Natalia leaped at them, feet and fists flying without restraint, bringing them down in her dance of death. But more poured in and flooded the room, choking her, pulling her down, drowning her—_

—and her shoulder was suddenly on fire, but her head still didn't hurt; why wasn't she getting a fever? Considering how long she'd been in the damn dumpster, it should've been a guarantee.

Natasha steadied the harsh breaths leaving her lips, staring up at the cracked ceiling and wondering what would happen if she let herself scream the way she wanted to.

There wasn't any time for that.

Pulling herself up into a sitting position more slowly than she'd have liked to admit, she propped herself against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest, aware that the fetal position was only used when a human being felt threatened by some invisible force. It was instinctive, and it indicated weakness, but Natasha knew that this place, here, was the only place where weakness would be allowed from her. After… well, who knew what would happen after?

Shit. She hadn't had a flashback in over three years, and that one had been worse than usual. The physical response that most of them garnered usually meant that her body _had_ to move, somehow, whether it was reaching for a weapon or rolling into a defensive crouch. This time, however, there had only been paralysis, and she was left staring at the ceiling in the brief moments when she came out of it. The only upside was that the concerned neighbor assumed she was having sex, so they wouldn't be checking up on her for a while.

Natasha noticed that her hands were shaking, and clenched them to steady them.

The thrice-damned flashbacks, as vivid as they were, were always muddied when Natasha tried to recall them later. Even this one was quickly slipping away from her, like water through her fingers. She thought it might have had something to do with her defection from the Red Room, but that didn't quite fit. A mix of different memories was more likely. She tried to match names and faces with her memories, but the faces were fading too quickly.

The flashbacks didn't… hurt. Not exactly. The problem was that they were moments when Natasha lost control of herself. More than once, they had ended in her coming back to herself while trying to choke the life out of Clint, or being restrained after she'd tried to break the neck of whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist had triggered her. They happened at seemingly random moments, and though S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to remove all of her trigger words (or at least, that's what they'd told her; who knew if it was true?), there wasn't much they could do to stop the flashbacks.

Natasha's mind hooked on something. She backtracked on that train of thought: 'seemingly random moments'.

Exhibit A: her flashback in 2006, during the library explosion in South Haven.

 _Lana was there._

The tactic matched, and suddenly Natasha knew exactly who Lana's target had been. The other implication that sank in was that even though the Red Room was supposedly destroyed after she'd defected (she'd been the one to destroy it, after all)…

Natasha sat, frozen, like a statue, not feeling unlike the way she had after finding out about Hydra.

There was only one thing to do, wasn't there?


	5. Chapter 5: Empires Fall in Just One Day

**A/N:** I'm sorry for the delay in updates, guys! I was at an anime convention this weekend and didn't have a whole lot of time for anything else. Hope you like this chapter!

* * *

There was blood on the carpet.

Sharon sighed, pushing her hair out of her face. She wished she'd told her boss that she wasn't equipped to deal with detective work— she usually found her target, and then she shot him or her. She had her fellow agents chattering away in her ear as she relayed them with visual information about the scene, where they'd only just managed to get the police out of the way so that they could handle it (France was pissed off about that, but Sharon let her colleagues deal with the administrative snafu.)

Anyway— how could she be expected to find Natasha Romanoff by looking at a crime scene?

She hadn't been surprised to hear that they weren't getting any hits on her from mobile devices or CCTV cameras; Romanoff would've been sure to change her look by now, and avoid the more public parts of Paris where that sort of thing was normal. If Sharon had been her, she would've been hitch-hiking across the country by now, trying to get into a neighboring state. Germany, maybe. Or she would've stolen a car.

"Do you have someone searching for car thefts?" she asked.

"We've got someone on it," replied Wilson. "Nothing that looked like it could be her when we followed up, though. A few drug addicts, a kid looking for a thrill. Police caught 'em pretty easily."

"You want ones that are at least twelve hours old, where the car hasn't been found yet."

"We're working on it, Carter." His voice had an edge to it.

Sharon took the hint and shut up for the moment, going back to the blood. It wasn't anywhere near either of the spots where the bodies of Edward Constantine or George "Hades" Maple had been. They'd both died without a struggle, taking shots to the head that meant their deaths were instantaneous. They'd had no warning, no sign that the Black Widow was planning an attack. It was frightening that she'd gotten the jump on trained agents.

(So where had the blood on the carpet come from?)

"Do we have the ability to analyze blood samples?"

"If you think you have something," Wilson replied dubiously. "The French police have agreed to cooperate with us. I'll give you the address, and let the Commissaire know you're on your way."

Sharon briefly wondered how the hell he'd managed to have that kind of sway, but she decided it was best to just go with it, and followed his instructions until she found herself at a police station. She got a few curious looks when she went inside, but Wilson directed her to the labs without any trouble. She gave the technicians the three samples she'd collected, then went to sit in a chair.

Since five in the morning, she'd been in a go-go-go kind of mood. Those sorts of manic states had become the norm for her after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and her jumpiness had tripled. Everywhere she went she felt like Big Brother was looking over her shoulder— not helped by the fact that her CIA handlers were constantly breathing down her neck, their mistrust a mile wide. Her sleep cycles were constantly off, and she was only just managing to keep it from being detrimental to her work.

She'd stood up to Rumlow for Rogers. She'd sided with Captain America, and about 30 witnesses knew it. 30 witnesses, all of whom vouched for her when asked. Most of those witnesses were now rotting away in top-secret prisons. She was not allowed visits. There were rumors floating around of a new S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to pick up the pieces and fight Hydra, but they were barely keeping their heads above the water if half of what Sharon heard was true. It seemed that no matter what she did, she was always going to side-eyed the moment anyone found out that she used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sharon gritted her teeth. She moved on. It was like wading through mud, but they all had to pay their penance for not knowing who they were really working for— not bothering to question their orders.

"Agent Carter."

She straightened. "Sir?"

"We might have a hit on a stolen car. It's been missing for eight hours, but there's a picture of it heading north, and it was stolen at three in the morning last night. Perfect time for Romanoff to escape the city, right?"

"It would be ideal for her," Sharon conceded. "But I don't think she would have left the city until traffic got worse; there would be more cover for her. Was there any sign of it this morning?"

At his negative sound, she continued. "Okay. Get someone to triangulate all possibilities of where she could be staying within a mile radius of where the car was spotted last night. I'm on my way; send someone here to pick up the test results. Let me know if the blood in sample A was a match for the blood in either sample B or C."

"Why's that, Agent?"

"If it isn't," Sharon said, pushing her way out the door, "then there was a third party involved."

Wilson went silent.

Sharon took a cab to the north side of Paris, walking at a leisurely pace to every location that Wilson listed off for her. There were a number of hotels, ranging from five-star to complete dump, but the stolen vehicle wasn't located at any of them. A voice niggled at the back of Sharon's head, telling her that it was more than likely that the trail had gone cold; the actual killings had happened the day before yesterday, leaving Romanoff more than enough time to get away.

So she wasn't surprised when she found the vehicle with an unfamiliar blond woman leaning against it.

" _Salut_ ," she called. The woman looked at her and blinked.

"Did you want something?" she asked in French. It had an unusual twang to it, which Sharon suspected was local.

"Yes, sorry," Sharon said, also in French, letting her hands relax at her sides. "A friend of mine had her car stolen last night, and I couldn't help but notice… well… it looks like hers."

The blonde's eyes widened, and she began speaking in more rapid French, making Sharon wince. She seemed to switch between ranting angrily about false accusations and then saying that she had places to be and no time for this sort of thing, so if Sharon could please get out of her way…?

Sharon folded her arms and didn't budge. She'd gotten in a glance at the license plate— it was definitely the one they were looking for.

"That's my friend's car," she said more firmly. "Look, I don't want any trouble. The police don't have to know— just give me back the keys and I'll let it slide this time."

The woman, if anything, looked even more irate, but then her eyes slid to somewhere behind Sharon, and it was like she was watching everything she had been able to discern about the thief melt away before her eyes. Like she was sliding out of her skin. Sharon took in the shift in stance, the way her eyes changed, but was just a moment too slow to react.

There was a flash of silver— _knife_ , Sharon thought, and suddenly realized she was going to die— when something crashed into her from the side, leaving the blade to graze her arm. She let out a hiss, but had a gun in her hand and was already firing on the blonde woman, noting the screams from passerby. She was aware of whoever had barreled into her doing the same at her side.

The blond woman rolled back over the side of the car, using it as cover. She shouted something, and Sharon recognized the language as Russian.

"Your guess is as good as mine," came a low mutter from her side, and Sharon found herself face-to-face with Natasha Romanoff.

It was only for a split-second, because the next thing she knew, Natasha had sprung upwards and was running at the car, narrowly avoiding several knife strokes. Sharon became aware of Wilson shouting in her ear, demanding a report from her, but the first word she tried to speak turned into a yell as a bullet whizzed by her ear. Then another one _hit her earcomm_ , knocking it clean out of her ear and somehow not managing to clip her in the head on its way. She turned her head to see Natasha staring at her with an unreadable expression, before both of them dove to the ground after the blonde woman popped up with a knife in each hand and aimed them at them.

The blonde woman said something else, more quietly. Romanoff didn't respond— she just continued to stare at her with the blank look on her face. For the first time, Sharon noticed that her customary red hair had been replaced by much a much shorter, curled brown. Romanoff's complete lack of a reaction to whatever the blonde woman was saying seemed to throw her off; then she took out another knife and slashed one of the tires in the car before sprinting for the alleyway; somehow, she was leaping out of the way of any bullets that either of them sent her way.

It was frustrating, to say the least.

Sharon concluded that there were too many eyewitnesses to pursue her, but she apparently had other things to worry about. Like how Romanoff now had her gun pointed at her.

"Whoa. Okay," she said. "Agent. You wanna tell me what this is about?"

Romanoff shook her head, gesturing that she should walk ahead of her. People were staring at them, well aware that Natasha was threatening her, but none of them wanted to get close. Sharon moved as slowly as she could, checking her surroundings for some way out, but she was up against (if not the greatest) one of the greatest assassins in all of history. Why had Wilson believed she could handle it, again?

They moved into a small café, Natasha chasing the staff out with harsh words. "Wait here," she told Sharon, then went back outside.

Sharon didn't know what Natasha was saying, but she got the gist of it from her body language: the wide eyes and the fevered expression said it all. She had to admit that it was utterly convincing, and judging by the way some people covered their mouths with their hands, the crowd was buying into it too. A moment later Natasha entered the café again, locking the door behind her.

"Here's how it's going to work." Her voice was flat. "We're going to go in the back room. I'm going to tell you three things. You're either going to agree to help me, or refuse. If you agree, we'll both be gone by the time the police arrive. If you refuse, I'll be the one who's long gone from here. You can play the victim, then report back to your boss later and tell him that I'm innocent and I don't really need multitudes of CIA agents trying to kill me."

"My orders weren't to kill. Just bring you in."

"Irrelevant," Natasha said, waving a hand. Her expression sagged for a moment, and Sharon had a brief moment of confusion; the woman looked incredibly young and incredibly old at the same time. That glance at what lay underneath was both more and less human than the Natasha Romanoff that the world saw. It was gone only a moment later.

"We'll give it a few minutes." Natasha casually aimed her gun in Sharon's face. "Let the crowd gossip about a jealous girlfriend trying to kill her lover's wife and her sister. They're half-blind; most of them are convinced that that's what's happened, anyway. Fun story to act out, though."

Was she kidding? She had to be kidding. Sharon saw her quirk her lip. Still probably kidding; lip quirks didn't mean anything.

Sharon was smart enough to keep herself from going on autopilot. This situation was absurd enough that any normal person would be in a daze of confusion, but the paranoia finally came in handy for something. She was clear headed, had control of all her tells, and she managed to stay completely silent while Romanoff fiddled with her shirtsleeves.

Exactly three minutes later (Sharon had been counting), Romanoff gestured for her to stand, then directed her to the backroom of the building. Sharon did as asked in silence; she couldn't help but notice that she actually had a few inches on the Black Widow. Which did not at all give her an advantage, but it did make her marvel at something so deadly could be so small.

"Alright," Romanoff said. In the distance, sirens could be heard. "Here's what you need to know."

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

Every day, 248 woke up feeling like an empty balloon (it amazed her, how the idea of a mode of transport could also be used to allow a child to have fun). By the time she went to bed, she felt like she'd been puffed up enough that she was in danger of bursting. Madame B. had told her how sponges worked, and that she should do her best to become one when informative training had first begun.

It was not like other training. They sat in chairs as things were put up on a screen, and Teacher explained what those things were and how they worked. They had begun with the human body and everything about it, including its weak points and how it could be used most efficiently. 248 had thought it was interesting, and wanted to try some new ideas she had in combat training the next day.

It was not easy. Some girls could not act like sponges, and the men in black beat them. 227 vanished for an entire day and reported to combat training bruised and bloody, though if anything she fought more savagely than ever. 248 was beaten after she asked a question during the 'Animals' day. The next day, the woman hurt her badly in training, so she focused all of her attention on the informative session and still remembered almost every single thing that was taught the next day.

Teacher had explained to them that the most important session was coming up (the Mind), and that they were to pay the utmost attention. Today the subject was weapons. 248 was transfixed by the image of a knife on the screen— it looked identical to the woman's.

Later, at combat training, the woman was absent. 248 expected to train with one of the other girls, but to she was led away from the room by two of the men in black (guards, she had learned in the informative sessions, they were called guards). She did not know why. She had not broken any rules, unless they made new ones and did not tell her. Madame B. always told her the rules, and made her recite them back to her before she went to bed each day.

One of the men that 248 saw sometimes was in the observation room. He smiled at her and gestured for her to sit down. 248 did not understand; she was not allowed in the observation room. Neither of the guards hit her, though, so it must have been alright.

She sat.

The lights in the other room came on. The woman was in there.

"248," the man said. "Madame B. has told me that you have progressed beyond your peers."

248 said nothing. Speaking was still not allowed, and he had not said that she was exempt from that particular rule.

She did not think she was better than the others. That was a mistake. They were wary of her after 220, watching her every move, but if they saw weakness again one of them would pounce. 248 knew that she was far from being the best at combat training; there were several others who were bigger, and stronger, and were therefore allowed to eat better than her so that they could get bigger and stronger. Those others looked at her training with the woman, and 248 decided that she did not like those looks.

"So," the man continued. "You should be able to understand this. This is another informative session for you."

248 stared at the woman. The woman did not so much as glance at her.

"The concept," he said, "is punishment."

248 had to fight to keep her mouth a straight line. A lesson in punishment was not needed. She knew what punishment was. Punishment was men in black (guards) coming to beat her, or take her somewhere else and then beat her, always in silence. Punishment was then having to fight in that condition in combat training the next day. She remember when 231 hit 219 in the stomach during one such day, and 219 fell to the floor, coughing up blood. Why teach her about punishment?

"The room she is in is called a sensory deprivation chamber," the man explained. "We've adjusted the settings so that all sound waves are cancelled, there are no light waves present, and a numbing agent was applied through a syringe. She understands all of this. Smell is not much of an issue, and the numbing agent takes care of taste. You are probably thinking that the light is on; how could she not see? It looks green, yes? That's something called infrared. You will learn about that later."

The woman's breathing was very slow. 248 place her hands on her thighs and stared. The woman must not have known that she was being watched. Indeed, if she were not sitting upright, 248 would have thought she was dead.

"It does not look bad now," he admitted. "No pain is involved. But after hours upon hours of feeling nothing, pain eventually becomes desirable. You are exempt from the rest of your training, 248. You have orders to watch her for the rest of the day. Madame B. will come to collect you."

The man stood and left the room.

248 wondered what the woman did wrong.

The woman sat absolutely still for what must've been hours— 248 knew what a clock was, but learning about how to keep one internally was a later lesson, or so Teacher said. Eventually 248 was able to pick up on signs of perspiration on the woman's forehead, and noticed that the pace of her breathing had sped up. It should not have alarmed her as much as it did. Many other hours passed, and that second state was the way the woman stayed. But this was not a test— it was a punishment, and the woman eventually seemed to realize it.

The woman's mouth moved. 248 wondered why. Was she trying to hear her own voice?

"It's beginning."

Madame B. stood in the doorway, silent and almost still. "Come, 248. You do not need to see. I will explain the rest on the way."

248 stood up and followed her.

"In another few hours, her attempts to hear something will become more desperate," Madame B. said while they walked. "She will start to scream, because it's the highest volume of sound she will be able to produce. Then she will begin self-harm in an attempt to feel pain. After a few days, she will become convinced that maybe everything about her is a fiction— that she is not real, and that she is in some in-between place, and then she will give up on being altogether. That is when we will come for her, and we will debrief her, and take her back."

"What did she do wrong?" 248 asked. She was allowed to speak to Madame B.

"She failed. Failing is breaking a rule, 248, you know that. You are not allowed to fail."

"I do not want to fail."

"Wanting is not the same as doing," Madame B. gently reminded her. They were at her room now, and they both entered, 248 silently climbing into bed while Madame B. sat on the edge of it. "248, what you witnessed is the standard punishment for failure. Think of it like a…cleansing process. It is frightening to everyone who goes through it, but they come out almost wiped clean. That failure is a ghost, and they are ready to replace it with success."

"My experiences and observations led me to believe that punishment is pain," 248 said.

"Not always." Madame B. tucked her blanket around her. "You will learn more about that during the Mind lesson tomorrow."

Madame B. was a tall woman. Her hair was white. Her skin was white. Her eyes were green. All standard observations. 248 also thought that she could fit the concept of 'kind'. She had affection for Madame B., as opposed to the curiosity she felt towards the woman.

"I am frightened of that place," murmured 248. "The fear is distracting. I wish to be rid of it."

"You already know how."

But 248 could not put it in her box, where all of the bad things went. It leaked out faster than the others. The woman was strong— stronger than all of the others, and that place was going to steal that strength from her in a matter of days. She could close her eyes and sleep, but then her mind would go back to that place, and to seeing the sheen of sweat on the woman's face.

She opened her eyes. Madame B. was frowning at her.

"You cannot?"

248 shook her head.

"Alright. Would you like me to sing to you, instead?"

The song was quiet and nice, and better distraction from 248's fear— enough that she was able to keep it in the box long enough to fall asleep this time.

The next day, combat training was early— before the informative session. The woman was not there. 248 fought against 229, and had one of her fingers twisted back very far. She pulled it back, because the guards would beat her if she revealed that she needed the infirmary. 229 smirked at her; unlike some, she was not stronger than 248, but she fought like the wild animals that they had all learned about, and those fighting against her rarely came out unscathed.

That day, 214 killed 224.

There was a crunch, and the leader called a halt; 248 and the others looked in the direction it came from to see 214 standing near the wall. The white had red lines running down it, and 224 was lying on the ground, unnaturally still. 248 twisted to get a better look— her skull was caved in at the back, and was the source of the red. 214 did not look calm, as 248 had been when she killed 220. She looked angry.

The guards came in and dragged the body out, leaving a red smear on the floor. 214 seemed to step in it deliberately when they all left the training room, leaving bloody footprints as they went to their informative session. 248 did not stop watching her once, even if it was just out of the corner of her eye. She understood the fevered look on her face, a mixture of exhilaration and confusion that was a dangerous mix. She just hoped that she did not get paired with 214 before the woman came back from the desensitization chamber.

"This lesson will be covered in the next two days," Teacher began. "Now pay attention, girls. What you retain from this will shape your futures."

* * *

 **Outside Paris, France, 2014**

A head poked out of the car window, before retreating back inside. A moment later the door opened and the head's owner emerged, her heels clacking as she went around to the back. The estate was old, and there was a sign warning them to keep off the property in French. Naturally it was the safest place for them to go.

"Wakey wakey, Agent Carter," Natasha deadpanned, opening the door to the backseat.

Carter stirred where she lay, long limbs sprawled across the leather. "That might have been the creepiest thing you've said so far."

"You haven't heard my HAL impression yet."

"Please don't." Sharon clambered out of the car, frowning at the decrepit building in the distance. "Quite the five-star hotel you've found us."

Natasha shrugged. "What, you don't think bats and rats are five-star? Shame. Not all of us have such high standards, Carter."

Sharon snorted. She then glanced rapidly between Natasha and the Renault they'd jacked. "You gonna hide that somewhere?"

"Nah. Anyone who sees it will just assume we're a couple of rich kids out here trying to cause trouble at the old, abandoned (and probably haunted) house on the hill. Maybe our friends dared us to come out here for the night."

They both knew that there were worse things than old houses.

"Maybe someone should call their friends to check in," Sharon muttered.

Natasha ignored her. Sharon was well-aware of her connections to the Avengers (considering she was one), and had been trying to figure out why Natasha flat-out refused to communicate with them. More specifically, she wanted to know why Natasha wouldn't tell any of them the same three thing's she'd told Sharon in order to get her to come along.

"Who're we even running from?" Sharon had asked, just before they stole the car. "The crazy Russian assassin you seem to know?"

"We're running from the CIA and the French law enforcement," Natasha had replied, ignoring the second question altogether. "Shouldn't be too hard to avoid them until we at least get to Germany, but we have to keep as low of a profile as possible. Minimal technology. Avoid places with cameras. That should be enough to keep us from being discovered."

After a few moments, while Sharon waited, Natasha decided to throw her a bone. "The assassin's long gone."

Then she was hotwiring a car, and Sharon's questions had to wait.

Now they trudged through a field of overgrown weeds to the front door of the house, which was rattling on its hinges. Picking the lock was no trouble at all; Sharon waited next to her, tight-lipped and silent, until there was a click and the two of them slipped inside.

There was the stereotypical chandelier-in-the-foyer thing, along with several empty frames hanging on the walls. A grand staircase ascended up into darkness away from them, leading to the bedrooms of the house, most likely. Natasha and Sharon both navigated the darkness easily and quietly, Natasha leading the way to a large door off to the side of the foyer. As she'd guessed, it opened to a lavish dining room, where about an inch of dust covered the tabletop.

The wall paneling was a dark, rich wood, as was the furniture. The carpet was chewed at in places, the curtains eaten by moths. There were empty candleholders dotting the wall every so often. She was surprised to see that the place hadn't been looted beyond the most obvious treasures (most of which were probably sold when the owners moved out, anyway). The entire place commanded respect, but also projected loneliness.

Natasha liked it.

"I might make this my vacation home," she commented, running a finger along the tabletop and staring at the dust collected on it.

Sharon glanced at her from the window, where moonlight was streaming in. Then she looked back out the window, then back again.

"Wow," she said dubiously. "You're actually serious."

"I'm always serious."

"'No, no, no, Agent Carter, we should find an Aston Martin to steal, so we can be like James Bond.' Your words, not mine."

Natasha smirked. "Did Steve ever call you, Sharon?"

"What—? Steve, as in Captain America Steve? _That_ Steve?" Sharon looked at her like she'd lost it. "I spent five months as his neighbor, and then one day I turned into a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Calling _me_ is probably the last thing he wants to do."

"But he asked you out for coffee."

Sharon eyed her. "You his wingman or something? Or his go-to gossip girl?"

Oh, if only Sharon knew the benefits of feeding the S.H.I.E.L.D. rumor mill. Natasha had gotten a kick out of the pants-ed Sitwell story for weeks. She smiled sweetly at Sharon, which only made the former S.H.I.E.L.D.-turned-C.I.A. agent look disturbed.

"So he did ask you to have coffee with him."

"He told you?"

"You assumed he told me. Then _you_ told me."

Natasha looked away from Sharon and pretended to examine the embroidery patterns on a decorative pillow, allowing Sharon to wince in peace at her rookie mistake. Sharon Carter was an excellent fighter and excelled at pulling off any disguise, but her interrogation skills were lacking. Not only could she probably not get information out of a target, but she also struggled with preventing a target from getting information out of her.

"Anyway," Natasha said. "I was the one who suggested it. You were nice to him. He needs to get back into the dating scene. You're both pretty."

Sharon coughed lightly. "'Pretty' isn't exactly the word I'd use."

This time, Natasha kept her smirk to herself.

The two of them found another door near the end of the room, which led to some smaller rooms that were clearly the kitchens. Natasha was planning on sending Sharon out for junk food in the morning, but she wasn't really hungry at the moment. Sharon didn't say anything either, so Natasha assumed she was fine for now.

Eventually they both settled down in the parlor, Sharon curling up in an armchair while Natasha ventured out to the nearby woods to find some logs and kindling. When she returned she had a small fire going in the grate, and pulled the curtains over the windows as much as she could. There was nothing she could do about smoke coming from the chimney; it was cold and getting colder, and Natasha was confident in her 'kids hiding out' theory.

"I gotta say, Agent," she drawled, plopping down in the other armchair. "You're handling being pseudo-kidnapped by one of most hated spies in the world pretty well. Most members of the intelligence community would have popped a blood vessel by now. It would've injured their delicate sensibilities."

"My sensibilities aren't delicate."

"I know. That's why I chose you."

Judging by the way Sharon's neck cracked when her head whipped around, she had not been expecting Natasha to say that. Natasha glanced at her without moving her head, lifting a single eyebrow.

"You did _not_ arrange that whole thing," Sharon said.

"Believe what you want."

Sharon faltered, then looked away.

 _I only act like I know everything, Rogers_. Sharon Carter didn't know a lot of things about Natasha. She didn't know that she was barely keeping the pain from her shoulder and her knee at bay, and her arm was throbbing in its improvised splint. She didn't know that, somehow, the bullet wound was never infected. She didn't know that (while Natasha was good at improvising), she was walking on a knife's edge with this one. She couldn't be allowed to know. Whatever it took… for the moment, Sharon had to believe in Black Widow, the legend. Not Natasha Romanoff, the person.

"You know more about Steve than you like to let on," she began. Sharon stiffened. "You used to hang on to every word of your great-aunt's stories about him. You look up to your great-aunt more than anyone else, but you believe that you're never going to achieve the good that she managed to because most of your adult life was spent working for an organization that, when it comes down to it, was created by Nazis. You just visited her last week, and she wasn't doing well, and it didn't help you with your current predicament. You might be a member of the CIA but you don't feel like you belong there. Your coworkers treat you like a bomb. You try not to let it bother you, but there are moments when you can't sleep at night that it—"

"Stop."

Natasha stopped.

Sharon took a deep breath. "You didn't have to do that. That's not why I followed you here."

 _No_ , Natasha thought. _No, you followed me here because I told you that children are in danger. And that's when I knew I could trust you._

* * *

 **New York City, 2014**

"You shouldn't have this number."

"Hi, Nick, I'm doing great, thanks for asking," Tony said.

"Shut up, Stark," Clint snapped. "Sir, have you given Natasha a mission?"

"For all intents and purposes, Romanoff is a mercenary," Fury explained, sounding weary. "As are you, Barton. It's not any of my business what she gets up to now that she's unemployed. Sounds like she's finding herself things to do if you were concerned enough to call a number that you _shouldn't have_."

Tony blew a raspberry.

"Stark, do you have anything more intelligent to say?"

"Yeah, like I'm going to waste anything more intelligent I have to say on you."

Clint groaned inwardly. Why in seven hells did Tony have to walk in just as he was trying to dial Fury? It had seemed like a blessing at first because Clint sucked at trying to figure out how to get in touch with him, but that last thing he wanted was for the two of them to have another one of their pissing contests. He considered just hanging up and trying again later, but by then Fury would have changed his number, and Clint would need Tony's help all over again.

"Look, Barton," Fury sighed. "I haven't heard anything from Romanoff in months. I was under the impression that she was keeping in touch with you."

"I wouldn't be worried, sir," Clint said, "except that she removed the tracker Tony placed on her while she was in Madrid. We don't even know how long it's been since we legitimately knew where she was. Then something happened on the news—"

"The Paris shootings," Steve interrupted, coming into the room. "Three women involved. None of the suspects have been found, and there's some story about one of them threatening the other two because the other two were her lover's… wife and daughter, or something? The footage was grainy, but that was _not_ what happened."

"Contrary to popular belief, Rogers, I do not know everything," snapped Fury.

"You sound like her," said Steve quietly.

Fury went silent for a few seconds.

Clint wasn't privy to the details of what Natasha and Steve went through during the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. He knew that they'd already been pretty friendly (judging by the way Nat was butting her way into Steve's personal life at every opportunity), but it was mostly the casual banter that two coworkers had. For Natasha, it was a rare dynamic, and Steve knew that and counted himself lucky because of it. Something had deepened between the two of them in brief window of time, because Steve wouldn't have said that otherwise (and he definitely wouldn't have been right about it).

He went over to the tablet he'd left lying on the coffee table while Steve and Stark began arguing loudly with Fury, Googling 'Paris' and 'shooting', and results came up under the news segment instantly. He went over several articles, watched the grainy footage.

"I feel like this would be a blond joke," he said. "Two blondes and a brunette try to shoot each other in Paris… one blonde runs away and the other one is Sharon Carter."

That cut off the 'discussion' so fast that Clint blinked. Tony looked clueless (it was a good look on him), while Steve made his way over to where Clint was standing and looked over his shoulder. It took him replaying the footage a few times, but eventually Steve nodded.

"Yeah, that's her." Pause. "Wait. Her last name is _Carter_?"

Uh-oh. Clint knew a shitstorm on the brink of erupting when he saw one. He gulped and shoved the tablet into Steve's hands, scurrying over to Tony and Tony's phone, which was somehow emanating Fury's presence even though he hadn't said anything for a while. He could picture him now, turning to burn a hole in the wall while holding the phone to his ear.

"Uh…" He had to clear his throat. (Steve was _scary_. Why was Steve scary?) "Yeah? I mean, I think so. Unless she made it up. But I'm pretty sure that only Natasha's done that on a regular basis."

Steve stood, seemingly frozen, then he sagged. "Natasha kept trying to set me up with her," he grumbled, throwing the tablet down on the couch with more force than necessary. "Made me promise to call her up sometime. It would've been nice if she'd thought to mention that she was…"

Clint winced again. "Sorry?"

Steve sighed. "Not your fault. Not really Natasha's either, I guess. She probably thought she was doing me a favor."

Clint decided not to mention that that was usually what Natasha believed of her actions. It was one of her best coping mechanisms.

"Carter's currently working for the C.I.A.," Fury said. "If those shootings had something to do with Romanoff, and she was there…"

Clint knew what that meant. It meant that the C.I.A. knew where Natasha was. Hell, it probably mean that they were hunting her down. It would explain the presence of the second woman, the brunette— which meant that the blond who'd high-tailed it before the other two turned on each other was probably Nat in disguise. He gritted his teeth. If that was the case, then she was deep underground by now. Finding her would be difficult, especially if she wanted it to be.

"We'll have to assume she knows what she's doing," he said at last. "She's not reckless by nature."

"If that's all, gentlemen," Fury muttered, then abruptly hung up.

"Fucker probably knows exactly where our favorite spider is," Tony said. "And what she's up to."

"If Fury doesn't want to tell us, then there's nothing we can do about it," Steve replied. His tone was that of a man who had learned that lesson the hard way. "I've told Sam that we're delaying the search for Bucky while we look for Natasha. I don't like this. She's in Europe somewhere, making sure we can't contact her, and there are even more Hydra agents crawling on that continent than there are on this one."

"Actually, it's about even," Clint supplied, aware of how unhelpful he was being. "America's acquisitions have been increasing more recently, that's all."

"Reassuring," Tony said. He threw himself down on one of the couches. "Ugh. Pepper. I want Pepper." He fumbled for his phone and pulled it out, holding it up to his ear and beaming like a child at Christmas time when a muffled voice answered at the other end. Clint shrugged at Steve and headed for the elevator, leaving Tony to talk to his significant other. Or have phone sex. Whatever. As long as Clint wasn't there for it.

"Hey, J.A.R.V.I.S.," called Clint. "Bruce in his lab?"

"Yes, sir. Shall I forewarn him of your visit?"

"Might as well."

Looking at Bruce was almost enough for Clint to feel sympathy exhaustion. The guy was usually pretty good about getting enough sleep, but he looked like a zombie, his movements mostly mechanical as he puttered around the lab. He waved at them without looking, face-planting into a microscope and not really appearing to want to move from that position. Ever.

"Should I knock him out?" Clint stage-whispered to Steve.

"Ha," mumbled Bruce.

Steve moved over to one of the lab tables, leaning against it and folding his arms. "Something big you're working on, Dr. Banner?"

"Radioactive crap."

"Eww," said Clint.

Bruce finally looked up from the microscope, if only to give one of the most exaggerated eye-rolls Clint had ever seen.

"It's nothing that important," he said. "Did you guys come down here for something, or…?"

"No, we totally just wanted to watch you work on radioactive feces."

"We think Natasha might have popped up," Steve said.

At that, Bruce finally seemed to wake up. "Where?"

Clint wandered over to another counter while Steve explained the group's suspicions, noting that there were several test tubes of blood on a rack and a computer monitor that had a bunch of gibberish he couldn't decipher. Most likely it was Bruce's blood; the good doctor would not permit himself to study Steve's (even though Clint was pretty sure he had some stored somewhere, for medical purposes should the occasion arise— they all did); he'd once told Clint that he used a spend a lot of him trying to figure out a way to counter the gamma radiation in his blood, but that he'd moved on to simply trying to understand it now.

To understand why he was still alive.

Clint was about 99 percent sure that Tony had put him up to it. He himself wasn't too big on the whole why-am-I-alive-what-is-my-purpose-on-this-Earth thing; to him, that kind of thing wasn't predestined. Natasha was evidence of that. If Bucky Barnes was somehow found before Hydra got to him (or he got to himself), then that would be a second case in Clint's favor. But it kept Bruce busy, and it kept him from thinking too much.

"Thanks for updating me," Bruce said, bringing Clint back to the present. "Um… I should probably try to get some sleep, shouldn't I?"

"Not a bad idea," Steve agreed. "How about you, Barton?"

"Nah. Target practice first."

"Night," Bruce said, all but staggering out of the lab, followed a short moment later by Steve. Clint stood in the middle of the room for a few minutes, staring thoughtfully at the blood samples, and then headed down to the gym.

* * *

 **Outside Paris, France, 2014**

"I trust you," Natasha said before she hung up.

She'd nicked Sharon's phone before sending the woman out to get them breakfast, taking it apart and reassembling it within ten minutes. Sharon had already disabled the G.P.S. tracking, but there was an inactive tracker in the hardware that Natasha removed and crushed under her boot, making sure it was properly damaged before throwing it onto the fire. Then she'd dialed in Melinda May's number, got an update from her, and then made a second phone call before hanging up and placing the phone on the chair Sharon had claimed during the night.

To her credit, Sharon only stared at it for a few seconds when she got back before shrugging and placing a couple of bags of food on the floor. "At least in the U.S. I could count on the presence of McDonald's," she sighed, sitting cross-legged on the floor and pulling out a croissant. "But I guess this is probably better quality."

"McDonald's is a conspiracy for world domination. It runs even deeper than Hydra."

"The terrifying part is that I can't even tell if you're joking," mumbled Sharon through a mouthful of croissant. She swallowed, and added, "I'm pretty sure they would've made their move by now, or at least five years ago, before Chipotle and Noodles & Company and all those new places started popping up and taking away all their teenage customers."

"Those are the rebel factions," Natasha answered, not missing a beat.

"I think I liked you better when you acted like a female Spock— really serious and straightforward. I'm eating breakfast in an abandoned mansion with the Black Widow, and she's making up stories about how McDonald's ultimate goal is world domination. This is the part where I say, 'How is this my life?'"

Natasha smirked at her, pulling out a croissant of her own. It was freshly baked; she'd always had an appreciation for French cuisine, whenever she had the opportunity to get her hands on it. She would almost count her flight being diverted to Paris a blessing, if it weren't for the fact that the whole reason for it was so that a fellow Russian assassin could try to kill her.

She had already inferred that Lana was most likely the Red Room's new incarnation of the Black Widow, and she was good. Very good. She knew how to set traps for people, and how to make them think that it was their own decisions leading them there. Her speed and ferocity while fighting were impressive (definitely on par with Natasha's, maybe even Steve's). She fought the way that the Red Room had taught Natasha to fight: like a predator trying to subdue its prey.

But it was clear that she was meant to kill Natasha, and she'd failed.

After finishing her croissant, Natasha probed her bullet wound gently with two fingers, startled to find that only a dull ache came from the shoulder. Her knee was barely twinging when she walked. The cut on her head had faded to a thin line, but Natasha had expected that. She knew that she healed faster than normal, but a bullet wound should've put her down for longer. The arm was still mostly out of commission, and would be for some time, but Natasha had a feeling that she would be forced to use it soon.

The bullet wound shouldn't have been healing so quickly.

(S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall… there had been no time to think. No time to consider that she was going in with a wounded shoulder. And Odessa? Well, they made sure to keep her sedated after the flashback.)

"So," said Sharon. "Do we have a plan? Somehow I don't think we're going to be sitting around here for very long."

"Go to the source," Natasha replied, shrugging. It was the only idea she had right now; she knew the location of the old Red Room base. She usually went back every couple of years to check on it, make sure that nothing had been disturbed. It was the only time she ever asked for any leave from S.H.I.E.L.D., although it took her several times to convince Coulson why she _needed_ to make sure nothing was… nothing.

"You know where they are?"

"No. I know where they came from."

Sharon went quiet after that. She'd tied her hair in a messy bun and looked like she was about to fall asleep where she was sitting— neither of them had really been restful, each kept awake by the volume of their thoughts. She was sipping her coffee, having bought one for herself (Natasha declined when she offered). It didn't seem to give the effect that Sharon wanted, not even twenty minutes later.

"I miss my espresso machine," Sharon said at last. "They confiscated that when they ransacked my apartment."

Ah, yes. Sharon probably lived in a C.I.A.-issued place now, where she could be watched. Monitored, for unacceptable behavior. They kept her on a tight leash, even though she was probably more invaluable than most of their agents combined. Her handler, to be frank, sounded like a jackass. Sharon was making the most out of what she had in order to preserve her sanity, but Natasha thought that Sharon was grateful for getting 'kidnapped'.

"We're gonna use the car for a bit longer, while we're still in remote areas," Natasha explained. "Then we'll start hitchhiking until we get over the German border. Once we hit that, we'll head over to Munich, and catch a plane to Moscow. Hopefully the C.I.A. haven't alerted Interpol about me, yet. That'll make things easier."

Sharon hummed thoughtfully, draining the last of her coffee. "It sounds more like we're planning a road trip, not a search-and-rescue."

"We're not going to be stopping at any iconic landmarks. Sorry."

"I'm devastated." Natasha could still detect uneasiness beneath the sarcasm— the caution that was automatic for Sharon around the Black Widow. It didn't bother her. It was normal. Not that Sharon was really 'normal', being a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and all. She was on the outside of the rest of the world, looking in.

Natasha spent the rest of the day exploring the manor. In that time, she managed to map out all the hidden doors and little passageways that were used by servants. It was calming, getting to know the place, and the more Natasha toured it the more she settled on adding it to the list of her safe houses. She didn't have many left in Europe; most of them were no longer options due to Hydra. It was time she started rooting herself in Europe again; it would be a good investment in the future.

Tomorrow, she and Sharon would start their trek to Munich. Today, she stared out a tiny window in one of the secret rooms and, for once, didn't govern her facial expressions.


	6. Chapter 6: Not Meant for You

**A/N:** AGGGHH IT'S LATE AGAIN I'M SORRY GUYS.

Thank you to all who have been leaving comments! Your support means a lot. I hope you guys like this chapter.

* * *

 **Berlin, Germany, 2005**

The bodies of the men she was supposed to be meeting surrounded her in a circle, like she was a demon performing some ritual. There was no chanting, however, nothing to indicate magic at work— just her, sitting cross-legged in the center, her gun lying on the floor in front of her.

(She had other weapons hidden, of course. It was better not to take chances, and she had no intention of dying today. That folly she would leave to man approaching, if he was stupid enough to attack her.)

He'd been tailing her for two weeks now, and it really wasn't his fault that she'd spotted him. Her mind automatically honed in on things that were out of place; to a normal person he was completely unremarkable, but to her he stuck out like a sore thumb the first time he passed her in a coffee shop while she was on this assignment. Speaking of which, there was a suitcase full of notes behind her, somewhere. Blood was staining the handle.

"Widow." American. Natalia was vaguely impressed that he had managed to get into the room without her noticing. He had to be in a position that would allow him to observe without allowing her to return the favor. Smart of him.

It also meant that he could have killed her with a good shot, and she made a mental note that he did not.

"I've left you a present," she said, allowing her voice to relax into its natural accent. "There's money in the case, if you want it."

He didn't respond, but a moment later a blond man dropped to the floor not three feet away from her, carefully skirting the bodies surrounding her and just as carefully aiming the tip of an arrow between her eyes. Natalia watched him more out of curiosity than anything else. He was light on his feet and had a steady hand, so she marked him down as a sniper and suspected that if he got within range, she'd be able to take him down. Maybe not easily, but it was possible.

"Are you going to shoot me?" she asked, not quite amused, but not quite not, either. "Your boss will not be happy if you don't. You might as well get it over with; I'm running on a busy schedule. Low as they are, these men will be missed eventually, and they will be looked for. I'd rather not be here when they arrive."

It was the most she'd said to any one person since her mercenary days had begun.

The man gestured to the bodies with his bow. "Why kill the people you were working for?"

"I was tired of them."

Natalia stared him down. She lied often, but not this time. They had looked at her in the wrong way one time too many, made disparaging remarks about women in their lives one time too many, blackmailed her one time too many, thinking that she cared about the truth of her past. They had done what many men had done in her past: underestimated the Black Widow, and before they could carry out their threats there was a bullet in one's head and a knife in another's throat.

Finally he said, "That's not exactly a good reason to kill people."

"I have never had a good reason to kill people. Have you?"

That made him pause. She smiled.

"May I ask what your reason for killing me is? It only seems right for you to tell me."

The archer frowned. "This isn't how I was expecting this to go."

Natalia wordlessly gestured for him to elaborate.

"Uh, I don't know… crazy ninja fighting, where only one can survive? Or, y'know. Me surprising you, you lashing out and hitting me in the crotch or something… that happens a lot. But you were _waiting_ for me."

Natalia said nothing. She'd wanted to see what it was like to do something without fighting. Without trying to kill and asking no questions. She had even picked out the venue for it, asking her employers to meet her in an old parking garage, where no car dared reside. He seemed like a reasonable person so far. Maybe it would be possible to convince him to leave her be, after all. What sort of false promises would she have to make? That she wouldn't kill again? That she would work for the established government? She almost laughed out loud at that one.

"So," he said. "This is the part where I should shoot you."

"There was a 'should' in there somewhere."

"No, I will," he said, and Natalia did not tense up, but she immediately picked out three places on his body that she could kill him. "Just, uh, one other thing."

"No."

As far as she was concerned, he had sentenced her to death. As far as she was concerned, he was too much of a liability to be attached to her hip, as he had been for the past two weeks. As far as she was concerned, he had said that he was going to kill her, and that was that.

Natalia was moving before he could really register what was happening, though his reflexes were impressive. He did not get the chance to shoot her, but he did get the chance to block the knife she tried to use to slash out the back of his knee. She pivoted on her knee, ducking under a kick from him at the same time, and grabbed a semi-automatic from the hand of one of the dead man, shooting at him.

He threw himself out of the way, barreling behind a pillar while Natalia shot at him. Now he was back at a longer range, which was Natalia's cue to use the stairs.

By the time he bounded out of the entrance to the parking garage, Natalia was already two blocks away and out of his sights.

* * *

 **Washington D.C., United States, 1992**

Her brother was being a dummy. Again.

Sharon hugged her knees to her chest, curled up in one of Auntie's cupboards. She liked the small space, and the way it was dark except for the little beam of light that snuck in under the door. She liked that her brother never thought to look for her in there, even when he was searching for her to play with her because none of their cousins would play with him. They were all older, and they didn't like playing.

Dummies.

"They're all dumb," she whispered. "All dumb people. My family is _dumb_."

Nathan wouldn't let her be Captain America when they played. He was _always_ Captain America, and she was always the sidekick, or the bad guy that Captain America had to defeat. He said that he got to be the hero because he was bigger than her. Sharon had tried to explain to him that she was older, so she should be Captain America because older people ordered around younger people, but Nathan never listened.

She squawked when the door suddenly opened, blinding her.

"I'm sorry, dear," said Auntie. "I'd leave you to your super-secret hiding place, but I need someone to help me finish my cookies. We'll go downstairs to the secret room, just us girls. Alright?"

Sharon nodded, her previous indignation at being discovered fading. Auntie made good cookies, and she'd made a lot for the Christmas party, so there were some left over. Also, the secret room was Sharon's thing; Auntie let her in there, but she never let Nathan come in.

That reminded her.

"My brother is stupid," she announced. "He won't let me be Captain America when we play. I always have to be the bad guy! Or the sidekick. The sidekick doesn't _do_ anything, Auntie."

"The sidekick does plenty," Auntie said with a snort. "He's the one who saves Captain America's arse more often than not, and don't you forget it. But I agree that it's criminally unfair to have you never be Captain America. Maybe you should play a different game, and make him be a pretty princess and you can be the knight who rescues her."

Sharon liked the idea of being a knight. "Knights have shields, right? Then I'd have a shield. Which means I should be Captain America, because he has a shield!"

"Had, dear," Auntie corrected gently. She sounded amused, and sad.

"Auntie, why isn't there a girl Captain America?"

"Well, I suppose they didn't need to make one."

"I think they should've."

Auntie looked at her with her thinking face. Sharon shifted excitedly. Auntie's thinking face meant that she was about to do something really cool.

"How about I tell you a story," she said eventually, "about a woman who fought the bad guys."

Cookies, _and_ one of Auntie's stories? Sharon was changing her previous statement: not all of her family was stupid. In fact, Auntie was the smartest. And the best. Way better than her brother.

She bounced onto the couch in the secret room, while Auntie went to get the cookie tin. Sharon couldn't stop herself from fidgeting, even though Auntie never fidgeted and she did want to be like Auntie. A few moments later, she was munching on cookies happily and listening with rapt attention as Auntie began.

"Once there was a woman who was fed up with the way the world was, and decided to do something about it."

* * *

 **Border between France and Germany, 2014**

Sharon shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny of the guard. It was hard to concentrate when Natasha Romanoff was somehow managing to pull off looking like a god-damn surly teenager next to her. For fuck's sake, the woman was thirty; how did her scowl and her slouched posture make her look like she was half that age? Sharon was torn between being jealous and being sort of appalled (mostly because Natasha seemed to be enjoying playing the role of introverted younger sister).

She flashed her fake passport, elbowing Natasha to get her to do the same next to her (Natasha had suggested it, looking not-quite-gleeful when she did). The short, mousy brown hair suited her when she was like this. Sharon knew that Natasha was a master of disguise, but she had not expected her to simply melt into the role like she was born for it.

How many times had she done that before— remade herself as someone new? Sharon didn't like to think about it.

The guard grunted and waved them through. The college kid who'd offered them a ride (believing them to be sisters heading for a family reunion when their car broke down) waved them over and grinned briefly before hopping into the driver's seat. Sharon found his driving habits terrifying, but she didn't dare to say that out loud, even in English; who knew how the guy would react, and he'd been the most willing to give them a ride of all the people they'd hitchhiked with so far.

Natasha said something carelessly in sloppy German, to which the kid responded with a shrug. She flopped into the passenger seat with a rebellious flourish, almost immediately settling down for a nap (ha, as if she slept), while Sharon shrugged and smiled apologetically at the college kid.

He waved away her silent apology, telling her in French that it was no trouble.

The thing about Natasha was this: underneath the entire façade she wore (even the one she wore when it was just her and Sharon), there was this constant _something_ there. Sharon couldn't put a name on what it was, but was like a hum of energy, or something. Natasha Romanoff radiated danger (if you were high enough in her regards for her to let you feel it), but this went even deeper.

It was terrifying and, oddly enough, inspirational as well. Sharon was smart enough not to question it.

The kid drove them another 50 kilometers before he apologized and said that he had to turn off and head north from now on. They got out and Sharon thanked him, while Natasha mumbled a thank you of her own. As he drove off into the distance Natasha's disguise was sloughed off like snakeskin, leaving her standing up straight and looking more like the 30 year old she actually was.

"I like that disguise," she said.

"That disguise was a pain in the ass."

"See? You played your part beautifully."

Sharon knew that Natasha was mocking her (for a supposedly serious assassin who never, ever cracked a smile, she did that a lot), but she found herself snarking back anyway.

"Seems like the role of 'whiny teenager' suited you pretty well."

Natasha smiled at her— one of those vapid, empty smiles she seemed to prefer. Sharon wondered why it was that everything else about Romanoff was so well-hidden, but she could always tell when her smiles were fake.

They walked along the road for some time in a single-file line, Natasha taking point while Sharon brought up the rear. Occasionally a car would pass by, and one (or both) of them would stick them thumbs out, but it usually passed them by without even slowing down. Natasha would click her tongue, but she never looked surprised. Sharon, on the other hand, didn't mind the time she spent walking. Long car trips left her edgy and she wasn't tired, so she was grateful for the chance to stretch her legs for a while. Plus, it left her with the opportunity to observe her partner.

Sharon didn't regret her decision to leave Romanoff's files mostly untouched (she'd only read a bare minimum for her last assignment), but it was a bit frustrating to have nothing to go on when it came to Natasha. She was starting to suspect that the cold-hearted, emotionless assassin in all the rumors was a front— a disguise that Natasha wore when she was in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Which would mean that Natasha had never really trusted the agency. Understandable, considering even before it turned out to be Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. had made some questionable decisions.

On the other hand, it was equally possible that the Natasha Sharon was interacting with right now was the front, and the one rumored at S.H.I.E.L.D. was her true self. Or even that they were both disguises and no one (alive) had ever seen the real Natasha. Except maybe Clint Barton. Sharon wondered if that would make the rumors about Barton and Romanoff sleeping together true, but she dismissed that almost immediately as none of her business.

Natasha didn't seem to be studying her. But then, she didn't seem to need to. Her analysis of Sharon earlier had been frighteningly accurate.

They were picked up after a couple of hours of walking by an elderly woman and her husband; the husband gave them both suspicious looks ("You don't look like sisters," Natasha translated into French for her, before adding, "He thinks we're a lesbian couple."), but the woman only laughed and said that she and her husband were heading for Munich anyway, and she wanted company besides his grumpy ass.

"Literally, that is what she said," Natasha added in French. But she was grinning, so Sharon wasn't sure.

It was a quiet car ride; Natasha wasn't playing the surly little sister so much as the 'curious and excited' little sister, which meant not as many rude comments. It occurred to Sharon that the college kid who'd been driving them earlier had been giving her some interested looks, but he hadn't glanced at Natasha that way (probably because she had looked too young). She'd barely noticed at the time— she had learned, long ago, to let such looks slide off of her, because in her line of work they were guaranteed to happen, but it was almost as if Natasha had gone out of her way to avoid them.

Sharon made a note of that.

The old couple (the woman, anyway, who was lucky enough to be the one driving) was kind enough to drop them off at the airport, where Natasha disappeared for about five minutes before returning wearing a sundress and straightened hair. Sharon wasn't even sure she wanted to know how she'd managed that. A sundress didn't really seem practical.

"This isn't Game of Thrones," Natasha sighed. "Russian winters don't last forever."

Sharon looked down at her skinny jeans and shrugged. She'd live.

About halfway to their terminal, Natasha did one of her 'shifts' again, and moved to walk directly in front of Sharon. A moment later a security guard jogged past them, not sparing them a glance, and Sharon let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

The moment the guard was lost in the crowd, Natasha headed diagonally through the sea of people to a small line of fast-food places, Sharon following behind her without protest. She then deliberately walked right beside them before taking an odd, zig-zag path through the rest of the airport until they reached their destination. It took Sharon a moment to realize that Natasha was navigating her way through the blind spots of the airport cameras, and they reached the terminal without any more incidents.

How did Natasha know they were looking for them?

It made sense. After going so long without contacting them, Wilson had probably assumed she was dead and had finally made the decision to notify Interpol and warn them to keep any eye out for Romanoff. Even with her hair a different color there was still every chance that her face would be recognized. Luckily, they must have just barely made it past international security before the officials at the Munich Airport were made aware of the situation.

The air hostess smiled at them as they boarded, wishing them a safe and comfortable flight in German. Natasha seemed to come back to herself, which made Sharon relieved; before, her single-minded attitude had been terrifying.

"So, we're not going to get shot out of the sky or something, are we?" she asked, only half-joking.

"Nah," replied Natasha. "The Red Room isn't stupid enough to pull something like that. At least, if they've been hiding all these years, you'd think they wouldn't be that stupid. Stranger things have happened, though."

Like a demigod leading an army of aliens to attack New York. Or the world's greatest security and intelligence agency turning out to be infiltrated by a Nazi science division. Or, or, or. Or Sharon Carter being ordered to live as Captain America's kind-hearted, nurse neighbor. Who he asked out for coffee. Who Natasha was apparently prodding him to ask out again.

It was a little weird. Not that Sharon would necessarily say no, but she'd rather have the chance to earn Rogers' trust back first.

Sharon sagged in her chair, suddenly exhausted. It wouldn't be a long flight to Moscow, but the problem with living on the run was that you never knew when you were going to get another chance to rest, or eat. So she settled down, beginning the breathing exercises that she'd been taught to help her force herself to sleep.

She drifted off just as the plane was lifting into the air.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

The Mind lesson changed everything. For everyone.

It was… there was almost more than 248 could keep in her head at one time. The possibilities were endless, and suddenly surviving in combat training became a different process. Because the other girls were aware now, aware of how their fellow trainees might use them, or try to use their minds against them. They all had ticks in the back of their minds, telling them to look over their shoulder twice instead of once, telling them to eavesdrop when they could, to get information when it was within their grasp. They were still not allowed to speak, so they learned to communicate with looks, and shoulder brushes, and a slight squeezing of the throat before the combat instructor told them to stop.

233 stopped coming to combat training one day. She wasn't seen again; neither was any sign of emotion on 232's face.

Following the rules was still easy, except for the no-speaking rule. The girls knew that words held power now, and it was hard not to grab for that power. 248 and the others were beaten when it happened, but none of them were taken to the desensitization chamber. Eventually the woman came back and began to train with 248 again, and 248 (now knowing about the mind) watched her carefully, trying to determine if the woman's mental state was a hindrance or a help.

Help, she decided, after 248 completely misunderstood one of her moves and ended up on the floor because of it.

The woman seemed untouched by the new state of the trainees. She left, after training with 248 for a few days, and that was when 248 felt it again: the same thing she felt after 220 had been ordered to kill her by the woman. There were eyes on her wherever she went. For the first time, it was something she did not tell Madame B. about. Madame B. was another person with a mind, and 248 would never see the mind as a help ever again.

Even if it wasn't already hindrance, it was easy enough for another person to turn into one.

So the next day at combat training, 248 stated (out loud) that she wanted to fight more than one opponent at once.

(She did not; she was not physically ready. She wasn't yet getting bigger, like some of the other girls. She was winning half of her fights, but she lost just as easily because she could not figure out how to stop girls who were stronger than her and able to hold her down while she struggled.)

It had the desired effect: the guards came in and took her to a separate room. By the time they finished beating her, the combat lesson was finished.

It backfired on her the next day, when the instructor told 219 and 204 to fight her. To 248's surprise, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. She had not been expecting to fight two trainees at once, but at the same time, they hadn't been expecting to fight her at the same time. They were clumsy, ran into each other, and were awkward with their movements, so it wasn't that hard to avoid them. When she didn't, however, it was more painful, and she came away hurting almost as much as she had after the beating from the day before. The itch from the stares of the other girls was stronger than ever as they headed into the day's information session.

248 took a long route back to her room every night. The only rule lifted was that trainees were allowed to wander the hallways where their rooms were in the two hours before sleeping became mandatory, and she was starting to see more and more lurking out after hours, watching each other warily. Watching her with that intent, poisonous look. She made herself invisible and quick on the nights when not many others were out, and made herself threatening when more than half of the other trainees were out there with her.

Things changed again after about two weeks of that.

248 came into combat training to find herself face-to-face with an opponent that was larger than her. 207 was one of the strongest, and had yet to be assigned as 248's partner.

At first, 248 had been careful. She stayed out of 207's reach, made herself small and hard to catch. But she began to notice things, later: that 207 was slower, and sluggish. That her movements were not razor-sharp, unlike most of the trainees. That she was getting slower than everyone as the combat continued on. Near the end of the session, 248 observed that 207 was suffering from a lack of sleep, and wondered if the guards had placed her back in the room— the one that began all of this, signifying the end of 248's life from before, when they ate and exercised all alone, and were unaware that there was any such thing as 'other girls'.

The guards took 207 away. She came to the information session late, and beaten.

The instructor at the time paused a moment, before she said, "You must all remember to sleep. It's against the rules to not sleep."

Madame B. said to her later, "Are you sleeping normally, 248?" to which 248 nodded. Sleep was easy. The rooms were always locked. It was when she was awake that she needed to be afraid.

It was another few days after that that 248's good fortune when she made her way back to her room in the evening ran out. The halls had seemed quiet and she was more tired than usual, so she had taken a chance with a shortcut, flat-out running much like the time she had when the woman first chased her. That was how she ran smack into the middle of five other girls, none of whom looked surprised to see her.

They didn't speak. They knew better. Two of them grabbed her arms instead, two of them (the smallest girls, she knew, who deferred to the larger ones in exchange for protection— it's stupid idea, because those two will be the next ones targeted) moved to her front and back, to prevent her from escaping if she happened to break free. The fifth (249, and oh, she thought of the lesson of a literary device known as 'irony', and thought that this fit the bill) moved to stand in front of her. Her hair was black and straight, her features slanted severely, and already 248 is shutting down, moving all of her fear and rage into the small box, leaving nothing at the forefront of her mind but trace remnants of herself.

249 began by punching her, but when 248 didn't even blink— the blows were not any worse than the guards— she switched to kicking. Then scratching, hard enough to tear up some of 248's skin, and that nearly brought tears to her eyes. Even when the pain was an ache that refused to leave her, 248 could only think of the desensitization chamber and pray that she wouldn't get sent there.

Through the haze, 248 eventually figured out 249's plan: make her scream. Screaming wasn't allowed, after all.

She didn't scream.

Finally it was only a few minutes before mandatory sleep, and they slunk away. 249 looked furious. 248 stayed on her feet through willpower, her exhausted mind only just keeping the pain in a box as she dragged her feet the rest of the way to her room. She had two black eyes and blood oozing from the scratches, which stained her pristine white sheets.

The woman was back, the next week, and training with 248. In the middle of the session, the woman called out 249 to partner with her.

248 didn't know if it was a coincidence, or if the woman somehow knew. Either way, 249 was staring up at her with sightless eyes by the end of it.

(Sleeping was harder, after that.)

* * *

 **Palermo, Sicily, 2005**

The archer was going to die.

It wasn't even a question anymore. Natalia was running out of ways to survive in a world without the KGB backing her, and she knew it was because of him. Not just because of her gut feeling (which was accurate no less than 100 percent of the time), but also because the last contact she'd attempted to meet with had greeted her with dead eyes and an arrow sticking out of his chest.

The arrow that exploded five minutes later, two minutes after Natalia realized that it doubled as a bomb and jumped out the window.

It was a tactic she grudgingly admired: dig up and dry up her resources so that she would have no choice but to confront him. She smirked, wondering if his pride as a man was stinging him after she out-maneuvered him during their last encounter. The 'talking' thing had clearly not worked, so she determined that erasing him was the best idea. There was someone that she knew was here, in Palermo, who would be able to help her with her little conundrum.

Whether or not said help was voluntary… well.

Natasha walked along the beachfront at a relaxed pace, well aware that the archer had found her by now and was probably tracking her movements. This time she knew that he wouldn't know who her contact was; she'd only worked with the man one time in the past, so he was not associated with her in the way that the others were. It was lucky that she had not tried to find Andrey and get resources from him, else he too would be dead. That would be a blight on the mercenary community.

'Mercenary'. The title never suited her. It still didn't. But it was all she had. It was how she survived.

She went back to her small hotel and changed out of her bathing suit and into a flowing skirt and a tank top, before taking a clunky camera with her and getting back onto the streets. She took pictures of the architecture, took pictures of the Cattedrale di Palermo, went inside and briefly admired the artwork. Things like this were strange to her still, and she always paused briefly to absorb. There was so much to learn— things that were not taught in the Red Room.

Then she stole a car and zoomed away through the streets, picturing the American archer cursing and trying to follow her on foot. She ignored the honking of horns until she was in a quieter part of the city, where villas were spread out like breadcrumbs dropped onto the land. She abandoned the car a few blocks away from her destination, patting its hood before she made her way there.

There was nothing to breaking her way into the house. The man who lived there jumped when she came into the kitchen, but she did not give him time to pull out the gun she already knew he had stashed under his kitchen table. Twist, break wrist, punch throat to cut off scream, incapacitate with a blow to the side of the head. Easy.

She then got to work.

Natalia had met other mercenaries before. She'd killed several for trying to interfere with her work. Most of them were depressed, on drugs, and had twitches somewhere on their bodies. Their paranoia was better than hers, and yet their symptoms from it were more severe. None of them had the same raw efficiency she possessed, which did not allow her to lounge around and relax until she did what needed to be done.

Not that this needed to be done, but she had decided to stop taking on work until she had taken care of the tick sticking to her side.

The man (Angelo, who had no last name) regained consciousness an hour later. She had already been able to predict the phases of waking up that he would go through: blinking, adjusting to light and having vision, struggling to remember, then remembering everything.

She saw the exact moment he realized he was restrained several seconds before it happened.

Now, she thought, at the exact moment when he looked down at his torso and his eyes widened in horror. He began to babble in a mix of broken Sicilian and Italian, halfway pleading with her and cursing her. Natalia smiled. She stood up, went to his fridge. Retrieved a bottle of wine he had there. Poured herself a glass. Sat back down in a chair and listened to his pathetic pleas with half-amusement and half-disgust.

(The imbecile did not know that this was a mercy. His end would be quick. A blinding flash of light, maybe a brief feeling of pain, but after— oblivion.)

His speech finally slowed, and he fell quiet after fifteen minutes. His eyes became unfocused. There was a loud clatter near the front door, and two seconds later the archer came in with an arrow notched on his bowstring, wearing swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt. Natalia was impressed— he deduced the situation two seconds faster than she had predicted he would.

"Shit," he said. "Shit. Okay. Black Widow—"

"Natalia," she interrupted. She played with the device in her hand. "You should know the name of the person you are going to kill."

It should have bothered her more, telling him her name. But she hadn't cared about it in a while. It was not something that was hers, and anyone could mangle it any way they wanted, as far as she was concerned.

"Natalia," he said urgently. She wanted to laugh in his face, because his reaction was exactly what she expected. "Look. You don't… you don't have to push that button."

"I have had enough," she murmured, breaking eye contact, "of you destroying my resources, archer. I have had enough of being hunted like an animal. Of you, trying to force me to humiliate myself. I have grown weary of this game that you and I play, where you are deluded enough to believe that you are the cat and I am the mouse."

"I'm not the one deluding myself," he shot back. "What are you trying to prove? That the Black Widow can take care of minor crime bosses' dirty work?"

 _I am trying to survive_ , Natalia wanted to scream. Instead: "My motivations should not matter to you. You are going to kill me."

"For fuck's sake. Natalia." He looked like he wanted to put the bow down and pull on his hair. "Look, _before_ you interrupted me last time, I said that I was going to kill you."

She smiled. "That is all I needed to hear." Her thumb inched toward the button.

"Black Widow," he warned, eyeing her hand. "Black Widow— Natalia— _Natalia, fucking stop!_ "

His last words were a roar, but they were also panicked.

"What's the point in blowing yourself up, too?" he asked.

"What makes you think I would die?"

There were ways to survive the blast. She left the sliding door open for a reason. The archer, on the other hand, was pinned between the counter and her. He could probably have shot her and prevented her escape, but she didn't think he would.

"I was going to offer you a job."

The words made her mind grind to a halt, and words rarely have the power to do so. She stared at him, stopping all movement, including the expansion of her lungs that heralded breathing. She could pick up on no sign that he was lying, although if he was coming after her that would involve him being reasonably good at smothering any tells. When Natalia still did not make any move (including moving her thumb any closer to the trigger), he went on, speaking slowly.

"I was going to offer to let you talk to my boss. Call it a job interview."

Natalia felt nothing. "Will it pay well?"

"Pay's not too shitty, no. The apartment they'll give you has awful water pressure, though."

So not a one-time deal, like most of Natalia's work had been more recently. Something more… regular. Normal. The idea was not unappealing, but after three years of sprinting away from the destruction of the Red Room as quickly as possible, going back to that kind of life seemed absurd. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh, or ask more questions.

"Why?"

He shrugged. She noticed that his aim with his arrow hadn't faltered once. "You're good at what you do. And my boss isn't really that fussy about people's pasts, as long as they get the job done. Plus, y'know, you won't have to go to unreliable douchebags for your resources. Seriously, I was embarrassed on your behalf."

Truthfully? If he wasn't lying, it wasn't a terrible—

 _—the others were dead, or dying in the room, choking while the process burned them from the inside out as she watched, and realized that she was going to be the sole survivor. She was watching beside her, but not looking at them, at her instead, and was that pride—?_

—dropped the trigger, no, no, the archer was diving for it, she kicked him in the face with enough force to send him sprawling, groaning, and bent to pick up the trigger herself—

 _—Alone, she was alone, the only one left, and now there were only men and one woman, standing before her, declaring her their sole weapon, naming her their Black Widow, and asking who she answered to._

 _"I only know love for my Mother."_

 _The woman nodded at her, but the look in her eyes—_

"—alia, ow fuck, Natalia!"

Natalia hissed through her teeth. She was perched on the counter, trigger in her grip, and Angelo's gun in her other hand. The archer's bow was _broken_.

"No!" she yelled, aware that it was in Russian. "No. Not another one. Not another like them. Authority has the responsibility to go fuck itself, archer."

He seemed to get the gist of it.

"Okay," he said again. He really seemed to like that word. "Alright, fine. Look, you can shoot me— that's fine, I get it. Just don't blow the poor guy up, it's kinda pathetic. And messed up."

Natalia slid down from the counter and took three steps towards him, where he got down on his knees with his hands in the air, looking up at her openly and honestly. Finally. The man was making it far too easy for her, but at last she would be rid of him. At last, she would have this annoyance out of her life.

"Clint," he said.

"What?"

He shrugged. "You should know the name of the person you're going to kill."

Natalia stared. And stared. And stared. A thousand Russian curses ran through her head.

Like lightning, she flipped the grip on the handgun and smashed it into his temple. Clint crumpled.

She unstrapped the camera from Angelo's chest, threw it into the backyard, and hit the button. The resulting explosion deafened her momentarily, but she knew that it would only be minutes before the authorities were there.

Natalia left the handgun on the counter. They wouldn't find her fingerprints in a database, anyway.


	7. Chapter 7: The World is a Vampire

**A/N:** Chapter seven! Big stuff happens in this chapter, so prepare yourselves guys.

 **WARNING** : there are allusions to forced sterilization in this chapter. If that makes you uncomfortable, then I'd advise you to skip 248's section of the chapter (she only has one). There isn't anything too graphic, but it's there.

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

They managed to leave the airport without incident. Sharon was really good at looking unconcerned, but she did look at airport security a little more than she should have. Natasha had elbowed her the first time that happened, to which the response had been, "Ow. Geez."

"Wow, what a baby."

"You didn't have to elbow me, what the hell? A nudge would've done it."

"That was a nudge."

"You and I need to work on your definition of nudge, Romanoff."

Natasha hailed a cab, which took them to a hotel that she liked to stay at whenever she came back to Russia. It was, indeed, hotter than Sharon had been expecting, and she was really tempted to say 'I told you so' to her about wearing the skinny jeans, but Sharon didn't utter a word of complaint, so she kept her mouth shut. She did, however, sigh in relief when they got into the air conditioned lobby. When she noticed Natasha smirking at her, she rolled her eyes and waved her away.

The hotel clerk was an elderly man who always pretended not to recognize Natasha. Staying at the hotel was a risky move, but she was mostly hoping that Lana was still being punished by the Red Room, and therefore they would have time before they really needed to hide. She got a room that was different from her usual room, but it was easy enough to break into her usual one and dig up the weapons stash hidden under the floorboard.

"Isn't this kind of risky?" Sharon asked, sitting cross-legged on her bed and staring at where Natasha laid out the pile onto the other one.

"The hotel owner's an old friend."

"From what I've heard, your 'old friends' haven't exactly been reliable lately."

"Andrey was perfectly reliable," Natasha refuted. "He just happened to get shot in the head."

"I feel better and better about this as the days go by," Sharon muttered.

Natasha was the one to go out and buy food this time, and they watched the local news while eating. At some point all of this fast food was going to ruin her digestive system, but she didn't exactly have an alternative. She finished first, taking the time to examine her mending injuries in the bathroom while Sharon was finishing up. She stared at the scar on her shoulder for several minutes, feeling dread creep up through her throat, before she fished out Sharon's phone (she'd held onto it) and dialed a number.

"Hey," came the exhausted voice on the other end.

"You got anything?"

"Yeah. I— I have something. I'm not sure how to react to it, to be honest."

"A non-reaction would be nice," Natasha muttered. "So it's not just me? I'm not going crazy."

A couple of moments of silence. Then, "No. It's not just you."

She closed her eyes. Counted to ten, something so juvenile she never thought she would resort to it. "Thanks."

"Natasha—"

"No, really. This clears a lot of stuff up. I'll talk to you later."

"…okay."

She hung up a moment later, then placed a couple of other phone calls. One to Melinda, updating her status— "Don't tell Coulson. Let the bastard sweat a bit"— another to a couple of friends here in Moscow, none of whom were ecstatic to hear from her. Damn. There went the welcome back surprise party she'd been hoping for. She'd even brought some party hats with her.

Sharon was lying with her limbs at skewed angles on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm rethinking my life," she announced as Natasha came back into the room.

"This is… what— the third time you've done this now?"

Sharon sat up abruptly. "I know why I'm here," she said. "Why are you here? Because normally I'd say it's because you have a guilt complex the size of the country we're currently residing in, but nothing ever seems that simple with you. Or maybe it is." She laughed. "Hell, I can't even tell anymore. You're a walking, talking contradiction."

Natasha, for the first time, didn't have a ready-made response to that. She was usually able to see the direction that a conversation would take and plan accordingly, but in this case Sharon had pulled one over her head by shifting the focus from herself to Natasha. She sat down on her bed, placing her palms on her knees, and stared at a corner of the wallpaper where it was beginning to peel away, revealing green drywall underneath.

Once she realized that no response was forthcoming, Sharon looked at her. Really looked at her. Natasha's focus snapped to her and she felt all of her instincts screaming 'danger' at her, telling her that Sharon (who she had officially met for all of three days) was getting a little too close to the truth for comfort.

"We're going to a museum today," she said.

Sharon looked skeptical, but she went with it. Fifteen minutes later they were in a cab, on their way to the State Historical Museum. Sharon had piled her hair on top of her head in a quick, last-minute disguise that likely wouldn't fool anyone— which was fine, because Sharon's slouched demeanor was so different from her usual one that she was still barely recognizable by people who might be looking for her based on a written description. Natasha herself matched Sharon's pose (though not exactly, because that would be suspicious), and scanned the crowd, analyzing the patterns of the people and catching sight of no one out of place.

The museum was crowded, but not overly so. It took Natasha all of five minutes to 'acquire' a keycard from one of the security guards. She then led the way to the lower levels, scanning the card in order to get them into a room at the end of one of the pristine, white hallways. One glance at Sharon told her that the usual calming atmosphere of a museum did not have an effect on her, which was good. It was another confirmation that she'd made the right choice.

It was a tiny little back room, not much more than a closet. There was a large wooden desk shoved into the corner, a swivel chair behind it, and a coat hook on the other wall. Natasha did not envy the unfortunate individual who had to work from this dingy little room on a daily basis. They weren't here today, though, which was more than Natasha could ask for.

She went to the back of the room, selecting the floor tile that she still knew (even after years) was loose, jostling it aside with her foot and dropping through. Sharon followed a moment later with more than a little trepidation on her face, blinking almost as fast as the lights blinked on. Natasha crouched, then leapt back up to grip the ledge, grabbing the floor tile and sliding it back into place before she dropped back to the ground.

"It looks the same as the museum," Sharon remarked. "But I'm guessing that no one working for the museum knows this is here."

"No one who works there _now_ does," Natasha corrected her. She began the first few steps back in time, and cursed herself for being goddamn dramatic at a time like this. But there was no avoiding how this place impacted her, in spite of the passage of time. Over a decade since she had last set foot in this place, and it still seemed to drag her further in, her mind kicking and screaming as she went (kicking and screaming as she had as a child, when they took her to be punished).

It was a long maze of hallways, all of which were empty. No sign of the guards, or handlers, or overseers, or scientists that had pervaded Natasha's early life. She found the barracks easily enough, but each room was empty. She couldn't remember which one was hers; every cot looked the same, an indent where the girls would sleep in the center. She found the training room after that, and didn't comment.

Sharon was looking in rooms, too. She mostly didn't find anything, but after venturing through one door she stumbled out, looking pale.

"What was what?" she questioned lowly, her voice steady. Natasha knew without looking which room she'd gone into, and merely shook her head.

"It's just as clean and empty as it was the day I first came back to make sure it was really gone," she finally said, when they paused in one of the observation rooms. Both of them stared through the screen at the cell on the other side. "None of the medical equipment is here. No records. Nothing. Like the Red Room never existed. I hadn't joined S.H.I.E.L.D. yet, and I was just a mercenary, but I was half-convinced that I was losing my shit and that the Red Room was something I'd created in my mind. Always knew, though. The KGB were proof enough."

"Why do you never seem sure about who you are?" Sharon asked. "You're sure about who everyone else is."

Those words struck a blow— more of one than Natasha would ever let Sharon Carter see.

"What are we doing here, Natasha? They'd have to be idiots to set up shop in the same place as last time, especially since they don't have the backing of the Russian government. They don't even have Hydra's backing, from what it sounds like! And I don't believe for one second that you thought they might be here."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. "We'd have to be morons to look here."

"Okaaay…"

"It's too bad they took away all the surveillance equipment. Then we might be able to see her coming."

Natasha turned away from the growing horror in Sharon's eyes. She didn't need to ask who was coming. Instead, she took out her handgun, clicking off the safety and putting on a professional mask. Natasha, however, left the room without drawing a weapon, and went straight into the room across from the observation screen. She motioned for Sharon to press up against the wall by the door, while she stood by the bench with a relaxed stance.

There was a minute-long pause, like a breath waiting to be released.

Then— there. A movement, a brief displacement of air. Natasha turned to the side just as a knife went end-over-end next to her, burying itself in the wall. She lunged for the open doorway and grabbed the extended arm, using her not-inconsiderable strength to wrench Lana into the room. Sharon took her cue and her gun went off, but missed; Natasha dug her elbow into Lana's abdomen, stunning her briefly. In the next instant, both women were out of the room, and Natasha told Sharon to hold the door while she went back into the observation room.

Sharon looked pissed, but complied.

"Hi," Natasha said. "Familiar setting, I know. Hope you'll get comfortable, because we're going to have a long discussion."

Lana shot the screen once, experimentally. It barely cracked.

"Those cells had to hold the Winter Soldier, at one point," Natasha pointed out. "Relax, Lana. I just wanna have a conversation. I'd offer you tea, but, y'know. The Red Room's never really been a hospitable place."

After determining that she wasn't going to immediately be able to escape, Lana relaxed onto the bench, almost reclining on it, draped over it like it was a throne. Natasha remained standing, but she crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall, a little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

"Like a rat in a trap," Lana drawled. Her American voice. "Not bad."

"Congrats on being their new Black Widow. It's not an easy gig."

If Lana was surprised that Natasha knew this, she didn't show it. In fact, she smiled politely. "Thanks. I'd say congrats on the entire world finding out who you are, but that kinda sucks, so…"

"You spoke to me in Russian, before," Natasha said. "You know, I wouldn't mind doing that again. It's been a while since I've had a taste of home."

Lana answered without missing a beat, but she still spoke in English. It just happened to be heavily accented English.

"Home, Natalia? This place is not my home. And it is not your home. You made your bed with the Americans, do you not remember? Not that it did you any good, in the end."

"Did you know?" Natasha was more curious than anything else. "When you found me in South Haven, did you know about Hydra?"

"No." Lana shrugged again. "We stayed out of Hydra's business, and they stayed out of ours."

Meaning that the Red Room didn't know about Hydra, and Hydra didn't know about the Red Room. Or at least, the Red Room hadn't known that Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. Hydra hadn't known that the Red Room still existed at all.

"I was there to kill a man, and keep tabs on you. We wished to make sure you were not still hunting for us."

There was nothing in that sentence that Natasha hadn't already deduced, but she mulled over Lana's use of the word 'we'. Curious. Tools of the Red Room rarely spoke for it.

"What's your name?"

"Yelena."

It suited her better than Lana did.

"Probably a lie," Natasha dismissed. "No one gives their name that easily."

"It doesn't matter," Yelena replied. "I am going to kill you. I am going to kill the woman who believes she can trap me in this cell. And one of the last loose ends that could still pose a threat to us will be snapped. Poof, gone, like so much magic. There are others that will need to be taken care of after that, of course, but you are the only one that really makes a difference."

"That's sweet," said Natasha. "So I can't just… promise not to tell, and you'll leave me alone? You interrupted my vacation."

"If it had been a vacation, I wouldn't have interrupted it." Yelena crossed her legs. "If you had 'remained in ignorant bliss', as you should have, we would not be having this conversation. Hydra would be the only ones you would have to worry about, incompetent though they are."

"You have opinions about things?"

Yelena looked at her like she was an idiot. "You cannot make decisions without having opinions, Natalia."

"And they let you make decisions."

Yelena smiled. Natasha recognized that smile.

"So," she said. "How far behind are the grunts you decided to bring with you?"

Yelena's expression didn't change, but she did sigh. "I didn't bring any grunts." Switching to Russian, she added, "Of the two of us, who do you think has the real control here, Natalia? Have you asked yourself why I know your name yet? Or why I use it? If my handlers didn't want emotional attachment, they would have only provided me with the bare minimum of information. Ordinarily, they do. But in this case, emotion is a help. Not a hindrance."

Natasha nodded. She could already hear the thumping of a patrol approaching. They were both trained liars, after all. "You hate me," she surmised. "Does this have to do with the serum?"

Yelena's stance changed. Natasha was aware that she only knew this because Yelena was allowing her to see it, but that didn't mean it wasn't genuine. Her newfound knowledge threw off her estimation of how old the other woman was— older than the 22 she had originally guessed at, but probably not older than Natasha herself. Either way, Yelena was sitting up now, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She lost her smile.

"You know about the serum," she said flatly.

"I know that there is one," Natasha replied. "I know that I have it. The place where a CIA agent shot me healed within three days. I suspect you have it, too. No one could move as quickly as you do without enhancements. How many girls are they going to give it to this time?"

"Know?" Yelena laughed, sounding incredulous. "You don't know anything. Here, allow me to demonstrate." And she opened her mouth, and a word came out—

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

It was something else in Russian, but there was no sound from Natasha after that.

 _Shit_.

Sharon allowed herself about three short seconds to come up with some hodge-podge of a plan, before she shoved the door in place as best as she could. She did what she could to jam it, made sure the lock was turned, and then shot out the lock. She didn't waste any time to see if Yelena was able to break out, instead running lightly down the halls, keeping her ears strained for movements. She didn't believe for one second that Yelena had been telling the truth when she said that no one was coming for them.

Her suspicions were proven right a moment later when she heard the faintest sound of scuffing. She pressed herself against the wall by a corner, waiting, knowing that taking one peek out would be fatal. She pulled the pin on the grenade Natasha had given her in the hotel and threw it.

A loud flash, a bang, and then she shot down five of them. The rest were already starting to regain their bearings (messy as it was, Sharon wouldn't have minded having a real fucking grenade, for god's sake), and forced her to retreat back behind the wall, only able to shoot at them blindly. One of the bastards yelled something out, and Sharon took that as her cue to retreat, getting in a quick shot at one as they rounded the corner before she ran as fast as she could to the room Natasha had been in.

The assassin was lying prone on the floor, like a puppet with her strings cut. Her eyes were open and blank; they didn't react when Sharon waved a hand in front of her face. Swearing, Sharon hoisted her up, mind racing for the best way to snap Natasha out of it. She swore again when she looked into the room through the screen, and saw that the cell was empty. The door was ajar.

She managed to drape Natasha's arm over her shoulder, half-dragging her out of the cell to the sight of five more soldiers lined up to shoot them. Sharon backpedaled just before the bullets could hit her and slammed the door shut, securing it with the lock and (a moment later) the large desk in the center of the room. Her heart was slamming in her throat as she dumped Natasha unceremoniously to the floor, looking around wildly for an escape. There were no air vents to be seen (not that she could maneuver an unconscious woman through an air vent, Christ no). Sharon, knowing that there was no time, grabbed the chair and slammed it into the screen, as hard as she could.

There were a few muffled shouts at the door, followed by Yelena barking orders, before everything went quiet. Sharon's throat closed up; it didn't take a genius to work out what they were up to. Desperately she slammed the chair into the screen again, and again, not caring how much noise she made (and not caring that there were probably others waiting for her outside the door on the other side). After what seemed like ages, it finally gave, spraying glass into her face but thankfully not getting in her eyes.

Sharon all but threw Natasha through the screen, wincing when the other woman hit the floor hard. She was just climbing through herself when the door exploded, deafening her.

The force of the blast flung her into the far wall, and it took sheer force of will to keep from blacking out. On the other hand, the debris was able to block most of the opening (though she still had to cover her head when the soldiers began to open fire). Frantically, she dragged herself across the glass and metal to where Natasha lay, wincing as it sliced into her palms and arms, working hard to keep herself conscious. She was already exhausted and in pain, her head protesting even as she made herself stand, somehow managed to carry Natasha in the same way again.

 _Okay_ , she thought. _Okay. Pull yourself together. There are going to be guards out there, and they'll shoot you. You just have to shoot them first._

Sharon Carter knew that she was one of the best marksmen that the CIA had ever employed, and she got that title for a reason.

She half-crawled, half-crouched as she made her way to the door, holding onto Natasha with one arm in order to free up her other arm for shooting. She breathed in deeply to steady herself, and then threw herself around the corner.

 _Bang. Bang. Bang._

Three down in the first three shots. The other two managed to fire off a couple of bullets. One grazed Sharon's gun arm, but she didn't flinch as her next two shots brought down the remaining two. The hallway was clear otherwise, so Sharon hobbled as quickly as she could the opposite of the way she gone the first time she'd been there. By now they would all be in pursuit, and Yelena would probably have realized that she was dealing with someone who could handle her own— maybe not as well as Natasha, but still well enough to pose a threat.

Which probably meant that Yelena would want to handle her personally. Great.

Sharon wasn't sure what Natasha had hoped to accomplish by interrogating Yelena. To her, it was obvious: Natasha held the title of Black Widow. Yelena, whether by being a replacement or just another that they were planning to create anyway, also held that title. She probably had that weird there-can-only-be-one mentality that was usually a trait of insane, competitive villains in TV shows. Sure she was good at hiding it, but she had basically admitted to hating Natasha.

Yuck. What a mess.

"You knew, didn't you?" she panted. "You knew bringing me into this would probably mean signing my death warrant. And you knew I wouldn't say no."

Natasha, catatonic as she was, didn't answer.

"That's almost the worst part," Sharon continued. "You were honest with me. You told me what the risks were. Sometimes honesty is the best way to manipulate people, isn't it?"

Somehow, even though Natasha was unresponsive, Sharon knew she was right.

She was well and truly lost, as she forced them through the maze of halls. She didn't have a clue as to whether or not there were any exits in addition to the one they had come through (there must have been, because there was no way the museum staff would've missed a bunch of armed men in black walking in through the front door). Natasha, who was the better fighter and strategist, was out cold, taken out not by brute force but by… what? A trigger word? Sharon had assumed that all triggers were removed by S.H.I.E.L.D. after— oh.

Not for the first time, Sharon muttered, "Fuck Hydra."

They continued to stagger, the sounds of pursuit starting to echo. Sharon could stay ahead of them, but she didn't want to think about where Yelena could be. She had a feeling that that woman would figure out some way to cut them off, and if she could take down Natasha then the odds were high that Sharon wouldn't stand a chance. Gritting her teeth, she started busting down doors, until she finally came across a room with more than bare walls.

"Here," she mumbled, shutting the door. There were several large cabinets, and a counter, and some holes in the floor where something was bolted down— a chair, if Sharon had to guess. She threw open one of the cabinets, not surprised to see that there wasn't anything inside, and dug around in Natasha's clothes until she found one of the knives that she knew Natasha had on her person.

A few minutes later, she made her way back out the door, running on her toes down the hall, both hands gripping her gun and trying not to wince from the cut on her arm. She rubbed her arm against the wall deliberately before doubling back and hurrying in a different direction. If her pursuers believed she was delirious enough to have to lean against the wall, they would let their guard down.

She felt like she must've been walking for miles (how big was this place?) before she finally hit a dead end: a door, with a small window in it. It was locked when Sharon tried it, but she wasn't deterred; she used a full-on body slam to crack its lock, but once she was inside, she let out a long breath.

Resignation. Anger. Frustration.

"You're good, Agent Carter," Yelena said. Her American accent was back in place. Sharon wondered at how it sounded more natural than her Russian accent had. "Very good, to give your own employers the slip and shoot eight men in the head. Instant kill shots. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know what they had."

Sharon pressed her back against the door. Distance was key; Yelena was holding a semi-automatic, but Sharon would still have time to squeeze off a shot before she kicked the bucket. However, if she got within hand-to-hand combat range…

 _Play for time_.

The little quirk in the corner of Yelena's mouth told her that she knew what she was thinking. It was worth a try, though.

"You're not so bad yourself," she complimented. "Natasha said something about a serum, right? That would imply faster healing, faster reflexes, more strength, sharper sensory input, sharper cognitive abilities. Probably better memory, too. It explains a lot."

The room was circular. There was a pit in the center. Yelena was standing on the other side of it.

"If you tell me where Natalia is, I'll convince my handler to allow you to work for the Red Room."

"Right," Sharon chuckled. "Because your handler is so tolerant of failure?"

"You're not a part of my mission parameters," Yelena said, shrugging. "And adults are easier to break than children, which is why children are usually more worthwhile, but you've already proven yourself useful in this case."

Sharon kept herself talking, while she tried to think of a way out of this. By now, Yelena's men were probably almost here. If she was extremely lucky, they hadn't found Natasha. If she was even luckier, Natasha had woken up from her trigger-induced stupor. If she shot Yelena now she would probably get in a hit, but the odds of that hit being fatal were low, Yelena's reflexes being what they were (not to mention her healing factor, even if the shot was in a critical location). Her best bets were a shot to the heart or between the eyes. If she didn't shoot Yelena, but stalled for time, Yelena would likely shoot her.

Either way, Sharon wasn't getting out of this.

"I like to think I'd be hard to brainwash," said Sharon.

"So would most people. But everyone has a breaking point."

"Look, I get it," sighed Sharon. "You think this is some kind of fight to the death thing with Natasha? Fine. Maybe you think it's like a there-can-only-be-one contest. You think it'll make a difference? You think that if Natasha wins, the Red Room will take her back? If Natasha wins, it won't just be you that goes. The entire Red Room will go up in flames. You don't wanna get in her way when she's determined. So maybe you should be the one who's running."

Yelena's response was unexpected. Anger, yes, and bitterness, but it was her words that threw Sharon off.

"You think this is about competition?" She laughed mirthlessly, and a chill settled over Sharon. "You're dumber than I thought, Agent Carter."

A gun went off.

Sharon thought, briefly, that it might have been her own, but then she was toppling forward into the pit as her knee gave out. She didn't resist the scream, knowing that the alternative was biting through her tongue (and screaming was a good way to vent pain). Yelena began to circle her while Sharon curled up in the pit, one hand feeling at the mangled mess that was her left knee. Breathe— she had to breathe. Breathing there was already a chance she would pass out from blood loss, no need to add oxygen deprivation to that list. Her gasps were shallow and loud.

"You're like Natalia," Yelena said. "You know nothing." Her voice rose to a yell. "You know _nothing_!"

A thud: Yelena was in the pit with her. She kicked her knee. Sharon screamed again.

Sharon stopped a wave of blackness from washing over her. Her head was throbbing. Her knee was… she couldn't think about it. She waited for the moment of death, but instead Yelena leaned down and grabbed her face with one hand.

"You all try to tell me what you _know_ ," she hissed. Then she lifted Sharon halfway up from the floor, still just holding her face. Sharon saw wide eyes, and something else there that was more terrifying than the cold, calculating precision from before. Yelena threw her away, looking disgusted, forcing Sharon to angle herself so that she didn't repeat her spectacular head injury from before. Her thoughts were less coherent as she watched: Yelena's pacing became more erratic, and her hands pushed through her hair.

Her eyes, though— they weren't seeing. Not anymore.

Her speech switched to garbled Russian. Sharon saw her chance, bringing up one trembling gun arm and pulling the trigger.

The shot hit Yelena in the ribs on her right side— may not have been fatal. Yelena seemed too surprised to make a noise, looking down at her wound and then over at Sharon. Sharon cursed silently, realizing that shooting Yelena had brought her back to the present. Oh, now it would happen. Now she was going to die.

Just as Yelena aimed her gun, Sharon lost consciousness.

* * *

 **New York, United States, 2014**

Tony wasn't exactly known for his subtlety. Hell, when he was supposed to be subtle he often did the opposite (case in point: a certain press conference). In this case, however, he was a little more subdued when he placed his tablet carefully on the kitchen island in the penthouse where Steve and Bruce were currently eating curry (and he was sure it was delicious, but no thank you Bruce I ate pizza for breakfast). They both looked from it to him, and their eyebrows went up at the same time.

The hell?

"And this is…?" Bruce asked.

Oh, right. This was Serious Business. Tony cleared his throat and pulled up what he needed them to see.

"I was conducting some research today," he announced, throwing the results up as holograms around the two men. He could tell that both of them recognized what they were supposed to be seeing, and neither of them like it very much.

"I guess hacking into the CIA counts as research," Steve said dubiously.

Tony waved a hand at him. "Not the point, and they'll never know." He waved a hand at the main document, bringing it to the foreground. "Guess what's on the big screen in one of their situation rooms back at Langley? This is for a group stationed in Paris, by the way."

Steve stiffened. Bruce didn't react— not visibly, anyway.

On the screen was a photo of a familiar redhead. Next to it, in block letters, was 'Name: NATASHA ROMANOFF'.

"They've started a manhunt for her," Tony explained, flipping through everything he'd gathered. "Pulled out all the stops. Interpol, local police in every country they suspect she might be in. All European ops have been suspended; she's their priority now."

There was a moment of silence between the three of them, before JARVIS prompted gently, "And the rest, sir?"

"Right, yeah. How could I forget the little cherry on top?" Tony flipped through again until he found another photo, this one of a room with two dead CIA agents on the floor. "The CIA believe that she was responsible for murdering these two men. Their team was apparently commandeered by the Itsy-Bitsy Spider for something while she was in Paris. Supposedly she had two others stake out other locations in Paris before leading these two to this building and then shooting them both. There was another team in Paris, and guess who they sent into the field to take out the esteemed Black Widow?"

Steve waited. Bruce started cleaning his glasses, but the way he fumbled told Tony he was concerned.

"Agent Sharon Carter, who was—"

"Involved in the Paris shooting earlier," Steve finished.

Tony nodded. "Anyway. What we didn't know is that she disappeared from the CIA's radar shortly after the shooting. They're mainly keeping an eye out for Romanoff, but they've started putting out the word on Carter, too, suspecting that she's probably working with Nat. Either that or she's dead."

"But we still don't know what Natasha's after," Steve said, "or why she cut off contact with us."

"Well, Bruce knows," Tony said lightly. "But I don't think he wants to tell us."

Steve's eyebrows went a little funny (Tony kinda wanted his face to get stuck that way), and his head swiveled to look at Bruce. Tony pouted at the scientist.

"Come on, Bruce," he whined. "Science Bros don't keep secrets from each other."

Bruce didn't look all that guilty. "It's not my secret to keep," he admitted. "Agent Romanoff—Natasha— has been in contact with me ever since she removed her tracker, using a different phone each time. I'm assuming JARVIS told you about the phone calls?" Without waiting for Tony to respond, he continued. "I don't agree with her refusing our help outright. But it's not my decision to make. Whatever's going on with her right now, it's personal. More personal than Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D., or so she tells me."

"And, uh, Black Widow tells you everything?" Tony asked.

For some reason, this made Bruce wince.

Steve was rubbing his eyes. "I understand her wanting to handle this on her own," he muttered. "Believe me, I get it. But now she's got the whole of the CIA on her tail, and if she's not careful we're going to have an international crisis on our hands. She's already been condemned a hundred times over by the army, no matter what happened on Capitol Hill."

"We've all been condemned, Steve," Tony answered. For the first time in a while, he felt more than a little annoyed at the Star-Spangled Wonder. "Every one of us has been condemned by the army. Frankly, it's been Natasha's turn for a while. If she wants to go out there and be chased down by the U.S. government, fine. Not like she hasn't done it before."

This time, Steve was the one who flinched. None of them knew a lot about Natasha's past, but they knew the basics: that Barton had spent months chasing after her before he was able to bring her in, that by then S.H.I.E.L.D. was ready to call in the cavalry to bring her down, and that at the time she was suffering from some…issues, after the KGB had been shut down. Tony was about to turn away, satisfied, but then he saw Steve steel himself.

Uh-oh.

"It does make a difference," he said, "when she starts bringing innocent lives into the mix."

"If you're talking about Carter—"

"Even if she didn't kill those agents—"

"You're gonna blame her for death by circumstance?" Tony demanded. "This isn't like you, Rogers. I thought you two were all buddy-buddy, now, after your little Hydra bonding experience. Geez, I thought that the person in this tower who liked Nat the least (and was least-liked by her) was me. Not her S.H.I.E.L.D. partner of two years."

"Steve," Bruce said, in the same tone that he once used on the helicarrier. "Trust that whatever Natasha's doing right now is worth all this. If you're that worried about her, then go try to find her. We won't stop you. But if I'm being completely honest here, you'll probably have about as much luck finding her as you've had finding your friend."

Steve looked as though he'd been slapped. Hard. It was a look that Tony would normally gloat over, but he wasn't really feeling it today.

"Where's Barton anyway?" he asked abruptly.

"Mr. Barton is currently on the shooting range," JARVIS announced. "Would you like me to relay him the information you've just shared with Captain Rogers and Dr. Banner?"

"Go for it."

Tony slumped into one of the chairs, suddenly aware of his exhaustion. He realized that he'd spent another night without sleep; he'd been engrossed once he found out exactly what was going on in the CIA. Oops. He'd have to catch up on that at some point, probably. Preferably after they figured out where Natasha was and whether or not she was still alive, but that wouldn't happen.

"The display'll keep updating as the C.I.A. uncovers more information," he explained, gesturing. "I'm gonna go crawl into bed and pass out. Uh… Bruce, you have the floor until then. Tell Steve what's been going on with Nat, or don't, I don't really care. G'night."

"It's morning," Steve called after him. Tony flipped him off.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

The noise was foreign.

Music, it was called. They'd gotten right down into the science of it, but listening to a piece had made most of the other girls wince. 248 could understand why; after they'd been taught how the notes worked and what each pitch was, it was easy for them to pick out mistakes (and playbacks of modern day songs had many skewed tones and unusually percussive combinations, all of which were smashed together into some kind of abomination of sound). Music, they quickly learned, was a distraction. It was senseless. It had no value.

(But it was better to know about it, at least.)

248 estimated that she was running on three hours of sleep every night. Falling asleep took copious and intense exercises, most of which led to unusual dream states that Madame B. had explained to her were unhealthy. Better to allow herself to live out the nightmares while awake, and then slip into sleep when exhaustion blocked any dreams she might have had. The other girls got more or less, depending.

Madame B. had told them much, but she never warned about how fear changed as they grew. How it morphed into something real that lay on the cots beside them, often with its cruel arms curled around them, its embrace unwilling to let go no matter how much they silently pleaded. 248 and the others had to learn how to sleep while it held them. They had to learn to trust the fear, even though Madame B. told them that fear should not exist.

248 would sit in the darkness of her cell, tucked away in a corner on her cot, where her back was protected. She was not allowed to speak, but she did stare down the fear, daring it to come closer to her. Eventually it would slink away, and then 248 would know that it was alright to lie down and sleep. She learned how to fight when tired, how to allow the constant edge in her mind to rule her life (never use shortcuts, always watch), and most importantly: how to hide from the handlers. She receded further back into her mind every day, allowing the day-to-day motions to become more automatic because she knew that she could not handle it anymore.

She barely responded to anything Madame B. said anymore. She tried to broach certain topics with her at first, but now she would lie limply on her bed, staring just past Madame B.'s shoulder to where fear waited, already staring at her. She still listened because Madame B. was always right, but she did not speak. She hadn't spoken for weeks now, it seemed.

The woman came back, and this time it seemed like she was there to stay. She trained with 248 every day for weeks, and 248 could tell that it was to her benefit, once again moving just ahead of the other girls as she picked up things from the woman. She thought that she would not mind talking to the woman, if it was allowed— but it was not, and so she never found out what would happen if she had.

The woman herself was the same, even after the desensitization chamber. She was rough, she was unforgiving, she was unyielding. She left 248 more bruised and battered than the other trainees. But 248 preferred her over fighting against one of the other girls. She hadn't wanted to fight one of the other girls for a while, now. She would rather have her back slammed against the floor by the woman. She did not know if the woman understood this or not, but either way she did not ask 248 to partner with someone else again.

The girls were all getting faster. They were being fed more, too. 248 was surprised to find that she wanted to eat more, and some of the girls would stare down at their chests in confusion on some days. They learned about the changes that happened in the body of a woman in one of their information sessions, and 248 soon began to see signs of it herself.

She did not know how long it was after that lesson (months, maybe?), that one of the girls landed on the floor. Her opponent landed on her feet, bouncing lightly, before announcing sharply: "238 is bleeding."

At once, the guards in the corners of the room converged on her, dragging her off for a beating ("Do not speak," said the woman to her). Only a moment later, however, another set of guards came in and hauled 238 up by the arms, taking her away as well. None of the other girls looked at 238's eyes, knowing what they might see there. 238 had broken no rules, as far as they knew. Things that they did not understand posed the greatest threat.

238 returned to training the next day moving gingerly, and was knocked down by her opponent several times. 248 saw her bite down on her lip sharply when she landed on her bottom, as though stifling a noise of pain. Everyone ignored the silent tears that slipped down her cheeks as they walked to the information session; crying was frowned upon, but making noise was intolerable. It was a disturbing sight, because the girls had all bled before, but the consequence had never before been tears.

More time passed. 248 grew stronger. She would be able to hold her own against the strongest and fastest of the other girls now, though throwing them to the ground was still above her. She learned sleight of hand and fighting dirty from the woman in a way that the other girls did not. She learned how to use everything she had at her disposal: her small size, her fingernails, her teeth. Not that those things did much good against the woman, who was just as vicious.

Ambushes still occurred, but they were easy to avoid until one day, when 211 didn't report for combat training. They found her corpse on the way to the information session, propped up like a grotesque puppet against the wall. All of the girls shot one another predatory yet fearful gazes, each wondering who had gotten the best of 211 and others wondering if they would be the next victim. 248 could not tell who was guilty because no one looked guilty; there was no sign of remorse.

The guards must have taken the body away, because it was gone by the time the girls went to eat after their information session.

Instead of being allowed to go back to bed after eating, the girls were each taken back to the cells where they were placed at the beginning— before combat started. 248 did not know why. She sat down on the familiar cot, while two men sat in chairs, staring at her through the screen.

"248," one man said. "For the purposes of this questioning, you will be allowed to speak."

"Yes, sir." Weeks of refusing to speak to Madame B. made her voice weak.

"Did you kill 211?"

248 had deduced that the questioning might have had to do with the death, but had not prepared a proper response. She did not think she would be allowed to speak.

"Yes, sir."

Neither of the men reacted vocally, but 248 saw them flinch. She read their faces. Fear. Possibly adrenaline. Excitement? It felt all wrong.

"Why?" one of them asked.

Hunter or hunted? Those two categories were becoming more and more apparent for the girls every day. There were those on the borderline in the middle, but it was becoming harder and harder to switch between the two. Once you became fastened in one role, leaving it was almost impossible. And the hunted knew that they were doomed, and so their actions became more and more desperate. Irglova had spoken of this. 248 had to learn to stick to a category, and soon.

 _"You do well at playing the other girls, but you must show them your true nature soon."_

"She was weak," she said.

(211? 211 was far from weak. 211 won almost all of her matches. 211 was solid when she was on her feet, and she was developing faster than the rest of them. 211 had also been more pale as of late, and fidgeted whenever she was around the rest of them. 211 looked terrified whenever someone came too close. 211, who looked baggier in the area of her crotch, as though she had stuffed something down it.)

"She was trying to hide that she was bleeding."

One of the men nodded once, like they had expected her to say this. Then the door to her cell opened, and four of the guards came in and grabbed her by the arms. 248 did not struggle against them while they took into one of the plain white rooms, and she lay still while fists and feet rained down on her until she could barely see out of one of her eyes.

Madame B. came into her room that night looking sad. "You lied to them," she admonished. "They already knew who killed 211. It was a test. But you were right about her trying to hide the fact that she was bleeding." She ran her fingers through 248's too-long hair. "Don't lie to us, 248. And please, don't try to hide the bleeding. We will take care of it, and you will not be any worse for wear."

 _It was about choosing a role._

The next day, 248 and the others learned about cameras.

The day after that, two more girls were carried out of combat training. They did not resist. They reappeared at combat training on the next day, both moving carefully but both clearly very determined not to cry the way that 238 had. The woman watched them out of the corner of her eye, and for the first time since 248 began training with her, she almost beat her, landing a solid kick in the gut. The woman recovered quickly. 248 could not tell what she was thinking, as was normal.

248's breasts were beginning to develop, and they hurt sometimes. A few weeks after that, she awoke to feel more stiff than usual and an unfamiliar ache in her gut.

She didn't even make it to combat training before she was intercepted.

(She did not feel pain, but she was not asleep.)

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

Legs: asleep. Blood circulation impaired. Footsteps: three pairs? In the room with her: yes. Dangerous: yes. A problem? No.

Natasha burst out of the cabinet and had one knife buried in an assailant's throat before he even had time to think. She dove behind him as the other two opened fire, letting his body collapse onto her as a meaty shield. It was an easy matter to grab his automatic rifle and level it at the other two, taking them down in a matter of seconds. Natasha gritted her teeth, fighting through the fog that still blanketed part of her mind, clawing her way to clarity.

It must've been an old trigger, or it would've taken days to wear off. No. No time to think about it, or think about how Yelena knew it. Next priority: door. Kill anyone wearing black. Find Sharon.

 _Find Sharon._

Mindlessly Natasha slaughtered the other men who were charging down the hallway outside her door, a juggernaut, a monster. One only had just enough time to cry out before she sprayed him with bullets. Her head was pounding, even though this wasn't a flashback she was suffering. It was even worse than a flashback, if that was possible, but Natasha could not let herself dwell. She didn't have an I.C.E.R. from Melinda, which meant that the equivalent of effectively incapacitating them was to kill them.

She full out sprinted, ignoring the alarmed shouts she could hear up ahead, following the trail of black-clothed men, leaving only bodies behind her. Maybe there were disappointed faces somewhere in her head, but Natasha only put more bullets in vital organs, and silently added the tallies to her ledger.

(Did they have families? Unlikely, since the Red Room wouldn't want men with attachments.)

A patrol of ten was waiting in a hallway with a door at the end of it. Natasha held her breath, counted in her mind, and then grabbed a grenade off of her belt and rolled it gently down the hall. The mercenaries figured out what it was a second too late, and the resulting explosion caused an ominous rumble to echo through the entire building.

Running through the wreckage, Natasha braced herself just in time to crash into an enraged Yelena. The force of her body knocked the pistol from the other woman's grasp. It didn't take long for Yelena to wriggle away from her, gasping and leaving a red stain on the dusty floor. Natasha desperately lashed out and buried her knife into Yelena's hamstring. The other woman didn't make a sound, but a flailing kick from her got Natasha in the face. Undeterred, Natasha jammed her Widow's cuff into the same place and discharged, not caring what the setting was.

Yelena writhed for a few moments before her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and the smell of burning told Natasha that she wasn't faking. The building rumbled again, and Natasha stood up. Her head was mostly clear (at long last), and she looked around, finding Sharon curled up in the pit in the floor. She made sure her face was expressionless, especially when she caught sight of the other woman's knee.

Natasha lifted her up bridal style, ignoring her faint whimper (she had to have been unconscious, or she would've screamed) and started to run again. She didn't go back the way she came, instead hurrying down a new route, where the halls became less pristine and older-looking. She twisted left, right, left again, until finally she found the room she was looking for. Natasha threw her full weight against the door, grateful when it opened, and then did the same thing to the door on the other side of the room, out into a dark tunnel. The only thing she could do then was keep running.

A few more minutes of hurrying through near-darkness (punctuated only by an ancient-looking light bulb that sometimes hung above her), and the rumbling from behind her grew into a roar. Natasha turned around and saw dust rushing towards the two of them, but there was no suffocating blackness following it, so she assumed that the actual collapse had halted far enough away that she and Sharon were safe.

Natasha walked, still carrying Sharon and breathing lightly (dust was never fun), the rest of the way until she finally reached a ladder. She paused underneath it, knowing that the ladder led up into a back alley behind a pastry shop and that sometimes there were drug addicts who lurked there. Most likely they would attribute the sight of two women emerge from the ground to a hallucination, but Natasha wasn't taking chances.

She glanced down at Sharon, whose eyelids were fluttering.

Natasha knelt down beside her immediately, tilting up her chin. "Don't look at it. Whatever you do. Just don't look."

"Hi," Sharon slurred, then she laughed. It sounded cracked and brittle. "Kneecap fractured?"

"You got lucky this time," Natasha answered, unable to stop herself from feeling a bit of warmth. She liked Sharon. Seeing her bleeding out in that pit had been a bit too close to home. "No fracture. But it's going to hurt like hell, and I don't know about nerve damage."

"Fuck," Sharon said hoarsely. "I don't know what… I pissed her off. I guessed at her motives, and I must've guessed wrong. Next thing I knew she was… angry, and then she shot me in the knee. That's a torture method— she wanted me to _hurt_ before she killed me."

"Much as I hate to say it, she got what she wanted," Natasha admitted. "I'm going to have to sew that up, but later. First thing I need to do is get the hell outta here, so I can get some supplies."

Natasha made a move to stand, but Sharon's hand latched onto her wrist before she could.

"Thanks," Sharon said earnestly. "Even if you're telling yourself that you were only returning the favor, thanks anyway. I'm sorry if your first thought was that I abandoned you, but I couldn't… I couldn't fight them while I was carrying your sorry ass around. Hiding you was… I had to."

"It's okay. I get it."

"What about Yelena?"

"I hamstringed her." Sharon whistled. "And tased her until she passed out. There's no way she could've gotten out of the collapse, but I still won't be 100 percent surprised if she somehow survives it. Noticed that you got in a pretty good shot to her ribcage, too. Nicely done."

"Yeah, well," Sharon said. "She was being weird. Pacing around and looking like she didn't know where she was. Blabbering in Russian. I took advantage."

Natasha paused. That information could be useful in the future. She could connect the dots on Yelena's behavior easily enough, but would she be able to use it against her?

"Alright," she said at last. "I'm gonna get us out of here. You up for that?"

Sharon nodded, eyes flaring with determination.

"Remember— don't look at it. And thank you, Sharon."

 _For not abandoning me._

Once again, Natasha found herself partnered with someone who deserved better. Once again, she wasn't going to let that go to waste.


	8. Chapter 8: Budapest

**A/N:** So I think that the subject material in this chapter should be fairly obvious. Hope you guys like it!

* * *

 **Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2005**

The Black Widow was easily the most difficult target he'd ever had to track.

Not that it put Clint off, not by a long shot (ha). His pants would be on fire if he said he didn't enjoy a challenge once in a while. She usually managed to lay at least two false trails before he could pick up on the real one. Still, he arrived in Montreal with a bit more trepidation; what happened in Sicily was both physically and emotionally draining, and he didn't really want to have another incident like that one.

He liked her. Damn it. He wasn't supposed to _like_ her.

More than that, however, was that the desperation he saw whenever he encountered him weakened his resolve. She seemed to bounce between clinging to life and near-suicidal whenever he saw her. Who was she trying to convince— him, or herself? Then there was the fact that she wasn't exactly old and seasoned. For fuck's sake, she was young. Too young to look like there were thousands of ghosts at her back.

She'd let him live. That meant something, right?

Anyway, she was hard to track down, so it gave him time to plan what he would say the next time he saw her. There was an interesting thing he noted in her patterns of movement: she'd do well enough covering her tracks, and then she'd make a rookie mistake every once in a while that flared her location like a beacon saying, "Here I am!" Clint would have remiss to ignore it.

Was it an invitation? Or was it actually an accident? She'd been waiting for him in Sicily. With a bomb strapped to some dope of a man, who later claimed to know her as 'one of their agents'. Clint was well aware that she used to be the KGB's top agent, but the man seemed to think that she was still working for them.

"They don't let you escape," he gasped to Clint. "They don't let you go."

"Shoot on sight next time, Barton," barked Fury after Clint had reported in. "This shouldn't be happening. You're letting her get the best of you."

"All due respect, sir," Clint said, "but Coulson warned me that I might just have to accept that she is, in fact, better than me. It might be the only way to get to her."

If Fury noticed his choice of words— get _to_ her— he didn't comment on it.

"Let's just hope that no other lives are lost because of her," the Director muttered.

Winter in Montreal was cold. The hotel Clint was staying at had rudimentary necessities, but it ran out of hot water pretty quickly, which meant he was speeding through a shower while swearing under his breath. He changed into a button down shirt and slacks and went exploring the Underground City. Coulson had warned him not to make his next move until the next day, so for now he was taking advantage of his free time to get to know the city.

His basic cover was an American tourist, someone who had a couple of family members living on the outskirts of town. There was a knife in his boot, but other than that he was weaponless— something that should have made him feel uneasy, but Montreal in the winter felt sleepy. So… relaxing, but also harder to focus.

Probably not a good sign.

Even less of a good sign was him finding the Black Widow sitting on his bed when he got back to his hotel.

"Seriously?" he asked. "I wasn't supposed to go looking for you until tomorrow. Today's my day off."

"Relax, Agent," she said dismissively. She was examining his bow, which kinda made him wince. Okay, it made him wince a lot; he didn't like it when other people touched his bow. "How _did_ you get this through customs?"

"It's a seeeeecret," he drawled, smirking. The glance she shot him wasn't necessarily annoyed, but it wasn't exactly amused, either.

"I suspect the collapsing mechanism helps."

"You're no fun at all."

Black Widow quirked an eyebrow at him, placing his bow on the bedside table. She didn't look like she had any intention of moving from her spot anytime soon, which, um… he did want to get some sleep. At some point. And he was not sleeping in the same bed as an ex-Russian-turned-mercenary assassin any time soon. Mostly because he valued his health. And possibly his sanity.

"So…" Really though, what was she doing here? "What's up?"

"I'm gathering intel."

"Right." Wait. That was probably bad. "On what?"

"You."

Clint blinked. Turned and flopped down in the surprisingly hard armchair that sat in the corner. Natalia's gaze didn't slide from his face once. Once she let him know that she was watching him, it became almost obnoxiously obvious, to the point that he wanted to use all of his old tells. God, did the woman have x-ray eyes, or something?

"So no job right now?" he asked. Had he been lured here by her _again_?

"There's a job." Natalia still wouldn't stop looking at him. "It's relatively harmless."

"I'm not sure that we have the same standards of 'harmless'."

"Says the man who uses a bow and arrows in combat. Very clever, by the way, embedding explosives in some of the arrowheads."

"You just have no concept of boundaries."

Natalia was different this time, he noted. The desperation, if it was there, was well-hidden. She was relaxed, and didn't appear to have hostile intentions for once. If anything, she seemed more curious than anything else. Fury's orders came back to him, an echo in his mind, but this was just… killing her when they were finally talking, on an equal footing— it seemed wrong to him. She was extending an olive branch, and he'd have to be a moron not to take it. Not to mention his bow was right next to her, and he wouldn't put it past her to know how to use it.

"Your organization," she said. "S.H.I.E.L.D."

Shit. How the hell did she know that?

"…maybe?"

Natalia gave him a look. "You're hated by a lot of people," she remarked.

"Me personally, or S.H.I.E.L.D.?" he asked. "Because if you have names…"

Natalia laughed. He didn't know if it was real or not, but it was a hell of a lot better than her screaming at him in Russian. There was the fact that what she was finding funny was his implied threat, but then his sense of humor was pretty messed up. It was kinda nice to know that someone shared it, so he offered her a little grin in return. His own olive branch.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. I haven't done any research on you personally."

"Until now."

"Until now," she echoed. "They all hate S.H.I.E.L.D. Acted like it was blasphemous. Plenty of horror stories about you."

"Well, I never said we were saints," he said. "We do what needs to be done. At least when it comes to world security. Not that the general public needs to know the details, but uh, yeah. We do what we can to stop bad things from happening, and if we can't stop them then we can at least prevent them from ever happening again. It's not a bad gig. I've had worse."

"They didn't raise you in a bottle, then?"

That seemed like an odd question. "Nope." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Why? Is that what the KGB did to you?"

"No."

Natalia said it with utter certainty; Clint didn't have much of a choice but to believe her.

He considered it— telling her about growing up in the circus, or telling her about life working as a killer for hire. It would give her the chance to empathize with him, maybe convince her that if he did alright at S.H.I.E.L.D., she would too. Then again, from what he knew about the Black Widow, that was an interrogation technique of hers. She would instantly believe he was either lying outright or not telling the whole truth.

"Can I ask a personal question?"

Natalia shrugged. "Asking won't guarantee you an answer."

"Fine," Clint snorted. "Next time I won't ask if I can ask. Anyway, I was wondering how old you are."

"21."

Clint almost swore out loud. Hooray, she was old enough to drink in the US— _what the fuck she was only 21_? So what if he'd been younger when he first started working as a sniper? The Black Widow had been gaining infamy for years, which implied that she had been working these kinds of missions since she was who-knew-how-young. Judging by how the underworld whispered of her, Clint had always assumed she was some kind of ageless, seasoned assassin.

His mind suddenly jumped back to a conversation he'd had with an old Russian man.

"What?" the man had laughed. "The Black Widow? Russia's greatest weapon since the early years of the Cold War? You are looking for someone who has been fighting the good fight for our country for decades. You do not stand a chance."

There must have been others who came before Natalia. Maybe she was another in a line of deadly assassins, and eventually (when age caught up with her), she too would be 'disposed of'. But the KGB had been dissolved before they got the chance, and now Natalia was left alone in the world to make her own way. She wasn't doing too badly in that regard. At least, he wouldn't have thought so if he hadn't witnessed her mental breakdown that last time he saw her.

Natalia seemed to read his thoughts.

"Is that young?" She was mocking him. "Too young for your noble sensibilities, Agent? I understand that most young adults drink alcohol and go to increasingly inappropriate parties. I find such activities dull."

"Like I said," Clint intoned, covering up how disturbed he was. "No fun at all."

"I could drink you under the table."

That startled a laugh out of him. "Challenge accepted. You bring your own booze?"

"Unfortunately not. We will have to have our competition another time."

Natalia stood up and stretched, bones popping. Clint stood up at the same time she did, offering her a hand. She stared at it for a couple of seconds, then shook it with a firm but hesitant grip. His orders from Fury crossed his mind once again, but accepting his handshake meant that their momentary truce was solidified. Killing her now would cross his own morals.

"I'm not accepting your offer, Agent," Natalia admitted. "To do so would mean making a fool out of myself. Whatever direction S.H.I.E.L.D. may offer, it will not help me."

"You sure about that?"

"Quite."

"Okay," he said. For some reason, that made her grimace. "Have a nice time in Montreal. I mean, it's freezing right now, but the Underground City is cool. You should check it out. If you have some extra free time."

"Maybe." Natalia gave him one last scrutinizing look. "Until next time, Agent."

"Sure."

He half-expected her to do something crazy like exit out his window using the fire escape, but she just left through the door to his room like any normal person would. He stared at it a long time after it closed, before a startled laugh escaped him and he pulled out his phone and dialed Coulson.

"Can I suggest something? But, uh, don't tell Fury."

* * *

 **New York, United States, 2014**

"Do you drink? I mean, I get it if you don't because drunk Hulk would probably be really bad, but I happened to have this bottle of champagne that I don't know what to do with, and I'm not sharing it with Stark because he hoards his alcohol stash, and Cap can't get drunk anyway so he doesn't drink, and—"

Yeah, he was rambling. Sue him.

"Come on in, Clint," Bruce said. The sarcasm was just barely noticeable. "Sit down. Don't interrupt my work or anything, even though I usually work with highly sensitive materials."

Clint, who had already sat down on one of the stools Bruce, presented his best shit-eating grin. "You're not sick, are you? Because I didn't bring any glasses."

Bruce sighed and plucked the bottle out of his hands, cracking it open and taking a swig before passing it back to Clint. "Look, I'm not in this to get plastered. I'll drink a little bit of it, but after that you're on your own."

Clint gave him a curious look. "So does the Other Guy have a better chance of coming out if you drink more?"

"No. But he won't be happy with the hangover."

"Oh." For good measure, Clint took another long gulp before he passed it back to Bruce. "You know if Nat were here, she'd either say we're disgusting and go get us some glasses…"

"…or she'd swipe the bottle from you and drink your share."

"Yeah. She would." Clint sighed. Okay, so he might've been sulking. A little. He'd hit his head earlier, when Jarvis had interrupted him while he was retrieving his arrows to update him on Natasha's situation. It was more information, sure, but because it was so vague it only made it worse— not knowing her fate. Jarvis had also told him that Bruce was keeping in touch with Natasha, and that might've been his real reason for the visit.

Bruce took back the bottle with a knowing look in his eye. "I can't tell you the results of what I've been researching, you know. That's Natasha's decision."

"I know," Clint said. "But I figured it was worth a shot anyway. Some stupid part of me was hoping she would tell you it was okay to tell me, or whatever. I mean, it's her business. Who she tells that stuff to. But… yeah. I'm gonna shut up now."

Bruce shook his head when Clint offered him the champagne again, looking thoughtful. He glanced at whatever was running on the monitor next to him, before pulling up another stool and sitting. Clint straightened, because Bruce always said that he wasn't there to play therapist for any of them. So whenever he did… it was usually something worth listening to.

"You haven't considered, maybe," Bruce began gently, "that this is payback for shutting Natasha out after the Loki incident?"

Clint grimaced and took several swigs before setting the bottle aside. He was pleasantly buzzed and well on his way to being at least drunk by now, but the appeal of getting shit-faced had suddenly worn off. Bruce's words were hitting a little too close to home.

Yeah, so he might have refused to talk to Natasha apart from the occasional text after Fury sent him home on leave. He'd managed to work through his issues with Laura's help, but only just, and he knew that it would have been better to have Natasha to talk to as well. Not easier, but better at the very least. He'd felt ashamed at the thought of dragging her into his problems, even though he knew that she considered it an obligatory part of the bond they shared (the debt she imagined she owed him, even though he'd told her hundreds of times that she didn't). So eventually she grew more distant, got more involved in working with Rogers. He'd only felt more guilty when he saw footage from her trial on Capitol Hill and saw her wearing the arrow necklace that Cooper gave her.

He'd been an idiot. He admitted as much to her when he next saw her, at the tower a few months after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and Natasha had stumbled in, bruised and with a broken arm. She shrugged, they'd gone back to their usual banter, and it seemed like everything was back to normal again. Maybe not, though.

Maybe he shouldn't have tried to brush it under the rug. He knew how she could get sometimes, with her emotions.

"I'd get that," he said at last.

He could understand why she'd go to Bruce, too. After all, the reason why she'd feared the Hulk so much was because she recognized him.

Their conversation was interrupted by a shrill sound that had Clint blinking, and then Bruce was pulling out his Stark phone and answering it. "Hi."

A pause. "Okay. Glad to hear it. Uh, no, just… stitches should be fine, but it'll hurt. Oh, okay. Clint's here, by the way. Do you wanna talk to him?"

There was a pause, then Bruce held out the phone. Clint took it with some trepidation; he'd been all ready with a pep talk about friends not leaving friends in the dark when they were being hunted by spy organizations, but in the face of his talk with Bruce, he was more hesitant.

"Hey, Nat," he said.

"Hi, Barton." Her tone was warm at least. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

"Ya think?" Something between a laugh and a sob escaped him. Oops. Natasha wouldn't know how to handle that. "The hell, Tasha? Stitches? Did you get shot again? I swear to god, what did I tell you about throwing your weight around like a jock while you're in Europe—"

"Barton." He could almost see her rolling her eyes. "I didn't get shot. Well I did, but it was a while ago. Someone else got shot. I was conferring with Bruce on how to treat them. Not much point in that, his advice was nothing new. But I figured it was worth a shot (no pun intended). Anyway, enough of the fussing— you sound like Steve. Or at least, Steve before he got comfortable with 21st century attitudes."

"Gee, thanks," Clint said. "Still kicking ass and taking names?"

"Is the sky blue?"

"Uh, actually right now it's gray."

"Smartass." There was definitely a note of affection in her voice. That meant he could relax, right? Right?

"Listen, Nat," he began, before he lost his nerve. "There's probably something we should talk about."

"Aww, did Laura put you in the doghouse again?"

"Ha."

"Sorry, Clint, but I need to get going before my friend bleeds out on the carpet." In the background, Clint thought he could hear someone protesting. Natasha must have covered the receiver with her hand, because her voice was muffled for a moment. "It was nice talking to you, but I don't know if I'll be able to call for a while. Just be careful, okay?"

'Clint'. 'Be careful'.

Natasha was scared for them. That was never, ever a good sign.

"Got it, boss," he replied, saluting her. "See you later."

He handed the phone back to Bruce, who said his goodbyes to Natasha before he hung up. The scientist put the phone on the table and took off his glasses, leaning back with a sigh. Clint realized that Bruce knew that same thing he did, about why Natasha didn't want any of them to get involved. He didn't know why, but he understood, at the very least. Clint wondered if Bruce also understood why she had decided to trust him in particular with whatever was up with her blood.

Sometimes, selfishly, he wished that he was still the only one that Natasha confided in. But he understood more than most that sometimes people ended up making connections with other people, even if they didn't mean to. Natasha was one of the most enclosed, private people he knew, but since the Loki incident she'd been branching out more, letting herself grow closer to other people. Maybe Coulson's death had had the effect of making her realize that you should make the most of the time you had. Whatever it was, he had no right to begrudge her.

He continued to sit on the stool, watching while Bruce puttered around the lab after the scientist seemed to conclude that Clint was done with conversation. He found himself nodding off once or twice, and after the third time he awoke to find the lab dark and a blanket covering him.

(So maybe he hadn't been sleeping all that well. Sue him.)

He passed by Stark's workshop on his way back up to the penthouse. For once ACDC could not be heard blasting away, but the lights were on, so Stark was almost definitely still working. He poked his head in the doorway to find the engineer buried in some kind of coding project, muttering to himself, and (after shaking his head fondly) left the guy to it. He'd let Pepper corral Tony into getting some sleep.

It was a little strange that Stark didn't have his music playing, but then Clint suspected he wasn't the only one who was a little off because of whatever the hell was going on with Natasha.

He found Thor in the kitchen, wolfing down Pop Tarts.

"Hey, big guy," he greeted. "Didn't expect to see you around for a while. Everything all fine and dandy back in Asgard?"

Thor swallowed. "Greetings, Clint Barton."

This was a surprise. Thor's presence at the Tower was even less common than Natasha's, which meant that they'd only seen him twice since S.H.I.E.L.D. broke down: once right after the incident (the day Steve came back from the hospital, looking tired and wrung out and like he didn't want to face the world for at least a week; Tony had essentially kidnapped him, but Steve hadn't protested) and a second time about a month later to tell them that he'd be staying in Asgard for a little longer for a political matter.

Clint set about making himself a cup of coffee. He checked the time— one in the morning. Great. He'd skewed his sleep schedule even more. Not that it was ever normal to begin with.

"You want coffee?"

"Thank you, but no. I do not think I need the aid of caffeine to stay awake."

"Yeah?" Clint sat and took a sip, even though it scalded his tongue— anything to get the bitter taste from accidentally falling asleep out of his mouth. "Why, what's eating you?"

"Heimdall informed me that the Lady Natasha may be in danger."

Clint put his cup down carefully. "'Danger' is a relative term where Natasha's concerned. How does Heimdall know that, anyway? He can see everything on Earth? Oh man, does he, like, watch people pick their noses when they're bored?"

"Why?" Thor's face was completely blank. "Do you pick your nose, Agent Barton?"

"You ever seen Frozen?"

"What?"

"Never mind." Thor shrugged and finished off his last Pop Tart, unbothered by Clint's reference. He was more patient than Steve when it came to learning about Earth culture. That was probably because he liked to make as many references to Asgardian culture as he could, leaving them all in the dark. Troll.

"Is she alright?" asked Thor.

"I just talked to her," Clint said. "She sounded fine."

"But you do not know."

"Not for sure. If she doesn't want me to know, then there's nothing I can do about it. But I think I can safely say that she's not hurt, at least. She's been keeping contact with Bruce, so we'll know if something's really wrong if she cuts off contact with him. The others aren't taking it all that well, but they sorta get it."

"Ah," Thor said. "Lady Natasha is on a quest, then."

A quest. Huh. That… actually wasn't a bad way of describing it. Natasha would chuckle if she'd heard Thor just now, but Clint didn't think she would deny it. She'd like to see it that way: a quest, instead of a mission. Even though both meant the same thing, one had a more romantic aspect than the other that Natasha would appreciate.

"Sure," he said. "A quest."

Yeah, she'd like that.

* * *

 **Istanbul, Turkey, 2005**

She took one look at him, hanging upside down, desperately struggling to get a grip on his bow, and laughed.

"No," she said.

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

Natasha tried not to let Sharon's mumbling bother her. It was hard, especially when said mumbling consisted on her calling out several times for her mother, or her father, or her elderly great aunt who probably didn't even remember her (or if she did, would wonder where the little girl had gone). Natasha knew that a spy's greatest fear was their children following in their footsteps. Sharon was close enough.

They'd switched hotels. Natasha had needed to leave Sharon down in the tunnel while she ran out and got supplies to treat her knee, and then she'd stitched her up down in the half-darkness, with Sharon drifting in and out of consciousness while Natasha worked. She'd brought down three bottles of water with which to wash the wound, after she managed to stop the bleeding, but Sharon was a normal human being without a serum in her blood. She'd just barely made it to the hotel that Natasha chose, and after that started having fever dreams while Natasha tried to get her to keep eating and drinking.

Her medical knowledge was sound enough that she knew exactly what antibiotics were needed to help Sharon overcome this, but she didn't have the time or the resources to go steal them. Sharon was strong, and the injury wouldn't be permanent (though it easily could have been), but it would also be a painful recovery— one that Natasha didn't know the length of. Sharon hadn't been coherent enough to voice her thoughts on the matter for at least eight hours, and Natasha was finding herself missing the CIA agent.

"The worst part," she said to the still-muttering woman, "is that I don't regret bringing you into this."

She'd still managed to buy a couple OTC painkillers and fever reducers, but the help they provided was scant for a wound this serious. Natasha knew what the smart thing to do was: call up Steve, or Clint, or even Stark, and tell them to get one of their asses to Moscow so that they could take Sharon back to Stark Tower, where her survival would be guaranteed. The problem with that was that Natasha needed someone else to help her bring down Yelena.

She didn't have anyone else. And calling one of the other Avengers here would be like sending up a red beacon for Yelena to see.

"I'm sorry," she said to Sharon. Sharon didn't respond. "I'd steal you some morphine, but I don't think leaving you alone is the best idea right now."

What kind of condition was Yelena in? Hamstringed, tazed, crushed underneath feet of rubble— she'd almost certainly be alive. Getting rescued by recovery teams and taken to a hospital would speed up her recuperation, otherwise she'd have to drag herself out (the Red Room wouldn't go to the trouble of finding her and helping her, not unless she didn't report in for days). Then there was Sharon's hit in the ribs… that might extend how long Yelena was down for the count, if Natasha was lucky.

 _Focus on the problems. Item A: keep Sharon alive._

Fluids, blankets. She'd already gotten an extra blanket from the receptionist. She'd been forcing Sharon to sip from a cup at regular intervals, even though multiple times, Sharon just coughed it back up.

 _Item B: trigger._

Natasha could not remember what word Yelena had spoken. Normal enough for a trigger, but unsettling when Natasha had been under the impression that her triggers were taken care of. What else was lurking in her mind, hidden from her? If she was going to even stand a chance against Yelena, she was going to have to work out how to beat any remaining triggers.

(Why hadn't Yelena used it when they first fought? It would have been easy— say the word, and Natasha would have been defenseless. It couldn't have been a matter of 'honor in battle' or something; Red Room members weren't known for their sense of a fair fight. The task was to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.)

Yet another reason why Sharon had to survive. Natasha still had questions about her confrontation with the other Black Widow.

A hand latching onto her wrist startled her out of her thoughts, and she turned her face to find Sharon staring at her with wild eyes.

"May?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Nooooo. No way. I'm about as far from Melinda May as you can get."

Sharon's eyes shifted in and out of focus. "…Romanoff?"

"Got it in two."

Sharon nodded shakily. Natasha ignored her noise of protest and raised the cup to Sharon's lips, forcing her to drink about half of it. Sharon lay back on the pillows, staring at the bandages wrapped around her knee. The circles under her eyes were pronounced, and Natasha knew that she had to be suffering from hunger as well, but there wasn't a whole lot she could do until Sharon was more lucid.

"Rethinking your life?" she joked.

Sharon shook her head. "No. No, this is… bigger than me. You told me that they… take girls. Away from normal lives. Away from the childhood that they might have had."

"Sometimes away from orphanages," Natasha said. "Places that might have treated them cruelly anyway."

Sharon didn't seem to hear her. "And Yelena. Is she what they get turned into? How many more out there are like her?" She swallowed, fixing her gaze on Natasha. "How many more out there like you? Is that what they turned you into?"

Natasha didn't give an answer because she didn't have one.

"You don't know, do you?" Sharon sighed. "You used to think so, but you don't anymore. So what's this all about, huh?"

Well, that Natasha could at least _try_ to answer.

"When I was a little girl, I had two loving parents," she said. "They gave me a new doll every year for my birthday. They used to hold my hands, one on each side. My father taught me piano. When I was a little girl, I also grew up in a little white room, where I ate my meals and spoke with a woman who looked like my mother every night before I went to bed. S.H.I.E.L.D. offered to find a way to extract the fake memories, but I declined; the split started during my mercenary days. Who knows— without it, I might have ended up with an arrow through my eye socket."

Sharon wasn't looking at her anymore.

"Neither set of my memories contains Yelena," Natasha continued. "But she knows me. Neither set of my memories contains proof that I've been given a super soldier serum, but in the last week, I've received undeniable proof of that fact. I've suffered flashbacks since my mercenary days as well, but I can never remember what any of the flashbacks are about.

"There was never time. There were missions, then there were the Avengers, and then there was Hydra… so of course I chose the worst possible time to figure this out, when the entire underworld has a gun pointed at my head."

Natasha looked down. Sharon had passed out again.

"Figures, you can't even stay awake long enough to witness my epic monologue," she murmured. At least Sharon seemed to be breathing a little more easily now, and the mumbling had stopped.

 _Or maybe_ , Natasha mocked herself, _you knew that Sharon would pass out in the middle of it, so that's why you chose to tell her the truth now. Coward._

It wasn't fair to Sharon, to still be keeping her in the dark about this. But no one had ever accused Natasha of being fair.

Natasha had never known her birthday (such things were never important, or so her handlers told her when she asked), but even if she had, it probably wouldn't have been her real one. She usually did something nice for herself around the time of year that Clint had brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fold, but with the reveal of Hydra that particular date had gone sour as well.

She stood up and went over to the grimy little window, wondering if she had enough time to go out and get some food for the two of them. Sharon seemed a little stronger now.

A siren screamed past. Natasha imagined that it was Yelena inside the ambulance, barely alive but enraged. How long would it take her to recover?

Making up her mind, Natasha grabbed the battered, but clean jacket that Sharon had been wearing, pulling it on. It wasn't cold out, but the hood would obscure her face enough that people would instinctively leave her alone. People never reacted well to a hooded, slouching figure making its way down the streets— especially when said hooded figure had its hands in both pockets. Who knew what they were hiding? Drugs, or a switchblade, or something as innocent as a lollipop. Natasha would have preferred the lollipop.

She bought a box of crackers for Sharon, some bottles of water, and some takeout from a nearby restaurant. When she got back to their room in the hotel, it was to find Sharon propping herself up in bed, looking at her leg like she wanted to rip it clean off. She took the box of crackers that Natasha offered her wordlessly.

"If you eat some of those without throwing up, I'll give you some rice," Natasha said.

"Pretty sure I won't throw up," Sharon mumbled around a mouthful of crackers. She swallowed. "What happened to Yelena?"

"You already asked me that."

Sharon furrowed her brow, but looked enlightened a moment later. "…right."

A moment of silence passed between them. Natasha had no idea what to fill it with— or even if it needed to be filled at all. Sharon paused with her hand in the box, then withdrew it slowly, staring at a point on the wall across from her. It was a look that Natasha thought she recognized.

She stood up and murmured that she needed to take a shower, even though it was a lie.

* * *

 **Gold Coast, Australia, 2005**

She didn't choose this.

Her employers said to steal a flash drive. They didn't say anything about damn _ninjas_.

Natalia dodged beneath the swipe of a katana (why did they even have katanas?) and responded by spin-kicking, her momentum strong enough to knock her opponent away from her and off-balance. That moment of weakness was all she needed, and only a moment later she was on him, easily breaking his grip on the sword and forcing it into his throat. His gurgle was enough for her to know that he was dead, and she pushed herself off of him after a moment of waiting surveying the damage.

Four dead, two incapacitated. Not too bad.

Natalia felt in her pocket for the flash drive, letting out a breath; it was still there. Her employers were supposed to be waiting as tourists by the Opera House in Sydney. Time to pack up and head there—

She paused, goose bumps rising on her skin, before she had the good sense to duck for the second time.

"Wow. For once, I caught you off guard."

Clint hopped down from his perch atop a filing cabinet (how had he even got up there? Ceiling tiles? Most men wouldn't fit, but then Natalia had made the mistake of underestimating him before) and approached her like they weren't surrounded by four dead ninjas. In case he was thinking about violating their unspoken truce from Canada, Natalia (just as casually) hefted the katana in her grasp. He paused a few steps outside of her personal space.

"You came at a bad time," she said. "It's summer. Hot as 'balls', I think you say in America."

"That's one way of putting it." He shrugged. "I'm here on a job. Not related to you, don't worry— I got taken off of that one."

Hm. That was a new (and slightly worrying) development. "Should I be expecting S.H.I.E.L.D. to send a master in broadsword fighting next?"

"Ha-ha," he replied. "One of my coworkers could probably use that katana better than you could, though. Not that you couldn't use it well."

"Your compliment is appreciated."

In truth, Natalia was planning on a long, long hike into the Outback after finishing this job. She knew it was probably stupid— a romantic, sentimental notion that some kind of self-imposed exile from society might help her. She pulled the sheath for the katana off of the body of one of the dead men. For some reason, she was glad that the masks obscured their faces. She did not wish to see their expressions at this moment.

Clint followed her out of the room into a deserted hallway, followed by an equally deserted avenue with only a few palm trees to provide relief from the sun bearing down on them. He slipped on a pair of sunglasses with a flourish, probably believing that it looked good, or something. There was no one around to notice the red haired woman with a katana strapped to her back, or the man who was not-so-subtly trying to hide a quiver under his coat.

 _I'm getting lazy,_ Natalia thought, but there was no helping it. It was like there was a sludge in her thoughts, slowing everything down.

"So," she said, adopting a faint Queensland accent. "If you have a job here, how come you're tailing me?"

"That's… kind of creepy how you do that."

Natalia noticed how he dodged the question, but with Clint she was willing to let it slide. "Whereas you go everywhere as an American."

"See? It's perfect." He grinned. "Americans are everywhere. Like fleas. I never need an excuse."

Natalia didn't really react to that, apart from a small quirk in her mouth.

The katana really was a beautifully crafted weapon, but she ended up abandoning it in a shrub outside a small cottage. Clint, of course, could not bear to abandon his bow, in spite of the risk it presented, but no one seemed to pay him any attention. Natalia realized that the reason was mostly due to her presence at his side, and linked arms with him to fortify that impression as they strolled through the coastal town. Yes, they turned heads, but no one saw them as anything other than a couple on vacation, or perhaps out for a stroll.

Just a flight to Sydney. Just a flight to Sydney and an exchange, and then the Outback was hers for however long she wanted.

"Anyway," Clint said. "I've already finished the job I came here for. I figured, since you were here anyway, we might as well catch up."

"We're hardly the types to go sit down and have dinner and chat about our work lives."

"Says who?"

Which was how they ended up at a small seafood place, Natalia picking at a basket of fish and chips while Clint devoured two sandwiches. Clint chattered away about vague topics, which Natalia understood was his way of telling her that he couldn't tell her much, but he did have a funny story about a man with a hip-flask in England. She got the impression that the man may have actually been a professional bomb maker, but she didn't press for details, nor did she speak all that often. She wasn't sure what to say.

She took a moment to catalogue him again while he reminisced about being in the circus (she did not miss the edge in his voice the entire time he spoke of that). A couple of scratches on the left side of his face, plus a burn on one of his fingers. He didn't look any more tired that he had in Canada— if anything, he looked healthier, which meant that hunting her had probably been taking its toll. Natalia might have felt flattered, but an entirely different feeling overtook her at that realization. It wasn't a pleasant one, either.

"You look worse," he remarked suddenly, and Natalia cursed herself for not noticing he was analyzing her in return.

She felt a bit like curling in on herself, but that would only reveal weakness. Instead she relaxed her posture, leaned back in her chair, and patched her face into an amused look that she hoped he wouldn't be able to see through. It worked, somehow, and he looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. It was strange, because 'uncomfortable' wasn't an adjective Natalia thought she would ever apply to Clint Barton. 'Dead' seemed more likely.

"I need to go," she said evenly. "Is our truce going to continue for the time being, Agent Barton?"

"Don't see why not." His discomfort vanished at once, like it was never there. "See you later, Natalia."

Again, she didn't know why, but Natalia didn't doubt it.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

Three more died. 248 didn't witness any of the deaths, but three trainees did not appear at practice one day, or any day after. Their dwindling numbers meant that combat training became more difficult, and she had to accommodate the new, sudden changes in her body as well. There had been a soreness in her gut for several days after the operation, which only highlighted the difficulty. She viewed it with the detachment that Madame B. had taught her: so long as they hadn't removed anything vital to her survival, it did not matter what was taken from her.

The rules were starting to be enforced more strictly. Sometimes, just crying out during combat training warranted a beating now. The woman was gone, though where 248 did not know. She usually fought with 200, who was smaller than her, but also quicker. 200 had yet to be taken for bleeding, and her breasts were not developing either. She was thinner, too. Eventually, 248 discovered that she could easily use her weight to drag 200 to the floor once she managed to catch her.

One night, when Madame B. came into her room, she was instructed to get up.

248 stood. This was against the rules— she was not to leave her room after a certain time. But if Madame B. said so, then it must have been okay.

She recognized the path of halls that she was taken through, back to the operating room where she had… 248 focused on Madame B. as the woman led the way through the door, into a room that was somehow even more blindingly white than the rest of the facility. 248 had to look away from the sight on one of the tables, only able to recognize the blank face of 200— the rest of her was scattered on the metal, silver and red swirled together.

The woman lay on the other table, eyes closed and bruised, battered almost beyond recognition, were it not for her hair. Madame B. beckoned her to approach.

"You may speak freely, 248," she instructed. "This woman failed in a mission recently, though it may simply be that we underestimated its difficulty. I want to know what you think we should do with her."

248 looked at the woman. Bruises, scratches, plus what looked like a more serious wound on her side. The woman was breathing steadily, though, and her hand seemed to be twitching in her sleep. For some reason, that drew 248's attention more than anything else. Was it a weakness of the mind, or a weakness of physical strength? What had caused the woman to become so damaged?

"Have you asked her what happened?"

"She has not yet awakened," Madame B. replied.

"I think you should, when she does," 248 said. "Then determine whether or not she made a mistake."

Madame B. caught her chin, forcing her face up. "248, you know that failure isn't tolerated here. You have been taught this lesson above all us, but it is the one that takes the longest for you all to understand. Do you have feelings of empathy towards her?"

"Empathy implies I could understand her position." _I have never been placed in the desensitization chamber. She has._

"Then what is it?"

248 struggled. Words were the hardest and most dangerous part of their lives. She placed all of her doubts in her box, refusing to feel fear, and said, "You need to determine if she is too weak. You need to be able to decide whether it is worth it to keep sustaining her, or if you must dispose of her. Punish her for her failure, but speak with her and decide if termination is necessary."

Madame B. nodded, looking satisfied. "A sharp assessment, 248. Do you know why the woman chooses to fight you?"

"No. I know nothing about her, apart from her appearance."

Madame B. smiled. "It's sentiment. She believes that you are similar to her, and so she is drawn to you above all of the others. Now that you know…"

"I can guard against it." Sentiment was dangerous. 248 looked over at 200, the grotesque thing painting the other table. Madame B. followed her gaze, but she offered no explanation, instead placing at hand on her back and guiding her out of the room again. 248 was not led back to her room, like she had expected, but instead she was taken back to a familiar place: the room from before, where she had undergone sleep deprivation. Madame B. closed the door and then went into the observation room.

"I've decided that it's time to test your limits again, 248," she said. "Congratulations on being the first."

248 blinked as the light flared on again.

* * *

 **Budapest, Hungary, 2005**

 _The flashing. The voices. They only grew louder, became more insistent while she cover her ears with her hands and screamed for them to shut up—_

Natalia gasped.

She stumbled through the debris while sirens wailed around her, the true source of the noise in her head. It felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to the inside of her skull. There was something she should have been doing to ignore that pain, but she couldn't remember what it was, no matter how she attempted to focus. Her only thoughts were to run, to get out, to leave before they— oh god—

 _—"Any collateral, so long as it does not arouse suspicion, is acceptable—"_

 _The water rushed up to her as she made a massive leap to the lifeboat for safety, ignoring the cries of the passengers for help. It could not be helped— they could not be saved, not this time. Not a single witness could be left alive after what she had done here._

Bang.

Natalia threw herself to the side, though not fast enough to avoid the bullet grazing her upper arm. She didn't get the chance to hiss in pain before the stone around her cracked from the force of more bullets. The sun was blocked out by ash and smoke, and she could only see flittering shadows on the crumbled walls of the building. She could do nothing but throw herself blindly in one direction, hoping against hope that there would somehow be salvation in her random choice of escape route, and found herself colliding with a meaty carcass of a man. She slashed wildly with her knife, ignoring his cry of pain, then vaulted herself over his body and through another hall. This one was clearer, so maybe—

 _—escaping was easy. The child would not find the bodies of his parents until the next day—_

"Stop!" she cried, choking as she fell to her knees. It was worse. Why the fuck was it worse? She'd tried so damn hard in Australia to rid herself of… whatever this was, but the blackouts only worsened. There were several indentations in the stone in front of her, indicating that she'd let off a few rounds and probably alerted any more of the men in the building with her. She picked herself up and ran again, praying that her mind would not betray her again.

This was not how it was supposed to go. Ah, if only her employers had paid her and left, as they promised they would… but no, they had instead decided that they were better off if the Black Widow was dead and buried in the rubble of the old building they were meeting in.

The stairwell she found creaked ominously, just barely holding out after the explosion that rocked the third floor. Natalia took each step one at a time instead of vaulting over the side like she might have done otherwise, knowing that something as sudden as her weight from a five-foot drop might cause it to collapse. She found two more of her employer's cronies in the next hall, and had shot both in the head by the time they turned to look at her.

 _"This is the one?"_

 _The girl was blond. Her eyes were more dead than most of the corpses she had come across in the past._

 _"Yes. She asked for a knife, so that she may have a more straightforward of fighting for her life."_

 _Well. That was impressive, that the girl managed to untangle their reasons for placing her in the room in the first place. She continued to stare at Natalia, her gaze unwavering, but also unseeing._

"You can rot in hell, Widow."

Gun. Pointed at her face. Natalia could see several options, but in her sudden rage, she only used one.

She managed to turn her head fast enough that the bullet only grazed her cheek, and grabbed something heavy off of the man's belt (mercenaries were almost always heavily armed). She pulled out the pin with her teeth and stuffed the grenade in the man's coat, before punching his knee hard enough to dislocate it. His scream was cut off as she stood, pulling his ankle with her, and dragged him over to the stairwell, flinging him over the banister.

Then she ran.

The explosion rattled the foundations of the building for the last time, and no matter how fast she ran, she could not run fast enough. The floor gave way beneath her, and the stone and mortar and drywall gave way above. Natalia curled in on herself and did not wish, did not pray. She was not made for those things.

The rescue crews would not get there in time to dig her out. She did not have much air— she was lucky enough to have a pocket of it.

 _"The girl will live," she said. "She will train with me."_

Maybe dying was okay. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Maybe the noise in her head would finally be quieted— that was something.

That was the way Natalia thought for what seemed like an eternity, while the air got thinner and the darkness grew heavier. She felt blood dripping down her cheek, and the slightest movement jostled her now broken leg so that she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. It wasn't an unbearable pain, but Natalia would not call it a mere ache. She closed her eyes and kept waiting, and did not think about how she would almost rather have had her neck broken in the collapse.

Air rushed into her lungs as a large part of the rubble was suddenly lifted off of her, and she found herself looking into the tip of an arrow.

Clint blinked twice, then lowered his bow. "Surprised you're alive down here," he said.

A broken laugh erupted from her. So it was not her time to die, then. Even though it had been the time for all of the civilians working in that little rented out office on the third floor.

"Job offer's still open, you know," Clint told her.

Years later, Natalia (Natasha) would tell herself that the reason she accepted on that day was because she wanted to start paying her debts. That was what she told herself whenever she took on some new, seemingly insurmountable task (like undoing the organization responsible for her creation). She told herself that it was the beginning of the next phase in her life, the turning point in who she was.

At the time, however, all she could think about was getting the voices out of her head, and it was with desperation, not determination, that she grabbed his hand.


	9. Chapter 9: Flowers Weeping Blood

**A/N:** Things will start to come to a head for everyone in this chapter... and we have another major character making his appearance at long last.

Also, this story actually has thirteen chapters. Apparently, I miscounted my chapters in my Word document. Oops.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Countryside, Russia, 2014**

They were driving again— and avoiding the C.I.A. And re-dyeing their hair. And wondering how long it would take before Yelena would come after them.

Sharon shifted her foot to the brake, biting her lip when the movement jolted her knee. She had insisted to Natasha that she would be able to drive, in spite of the pain. So far nothing bad had happened, but she wasn't exactly comfortable. She was tempted to try and massage it, but she knew that that would only make it worse at this stage of healing.

Sitting shotgun, Natasha was curled up with her head resting against the window, eyes closed. Sharon couldn't tell if she was actually sleeping or only pretending to. It wouldn't surprise her if she was, because she couldn't remember Natasha falling asleep at any time while they were stuck in the hotel. She'd either been looking after Sharon, or poring over maps of Russia and Europe, or on a laptop that she'd stolen at some point. It was like she'd abandoned the pretense of humanity, except Sharon knew all too well how human Natasha was. She watched as Natasha shifted, curling in on herself more, as though aware of Sharon's gaze.

Sharon returned her eyes to the road. Natasha Romanoff— the Black Widow— was, for all intents and purposes, a superhero. What did that make her— her sidekick? A CIA agent, formerly of S.H.I.E.L.D.? She'd been wondering what her role in this whole shebang was for a while now.

They were on a country road, moving east through Russia. Eventually they'd be turning south. Natasha had told her that they needed to get to a small town close to Mongolia, though why they were going there was a mystery to Sharon. She'd told Sharon that she needed to know what her trigger word was at some point, but Sharon didn't dare to even write it down, in case it was the thought of the word that set Natasha off instead of hearing the word spoken aloud.

They'd almost been apprehended by the CIA on their way out of Moscow, but a pretend fall by Sharon distracted enough civilians that the officials had backed away, looking at each other in confusion. Natasha had been quick to haul her up and get her out of there, keeping them both bent over so that the law enforcement couldn't see them, before she was hotwiring a car yet again. Sharon knew that it meant that Interpol had been told about them, and that she was recognizable, but she couldn't afford to think about it too much. Not now.

Sharon wondered how much the Red Room was sweating right now. Their best agent was down (for now), and she and Natasha were unaccounted for. She knew that she probably should've been more afraid of what Yelena might do the next time they met— and she was pretty sure there was a next time— but she felt oddly calm about the whole thing. Yelena was terrifying, and dangerous, and seemed unstable, but she didn't scare Sharon. Maybe it was because she'd faced her down at her worst and lived through it. Maybe it was because she'd seen Yelena at her weakest, or that she knew that Yelena had a weak spot in the first place.

One hand left the steering wheel to run through her new hair— cut and styled in a bob now, and dyed black. Natasha said that it didn't suit her at all, and Sharon was inclined to agree. She looked like a cheap rip-off of Velma Kelly.

Natasha, on the other hand, had gone with a blond so light it was almost blinding. Her hair was also short, though the change was not as drastic. It was the same style that it had been around the time of New York, so it wasn't that strange to see, but for some reason it made her look older. They were pretending to be sisters again, though this time Natasha had (thankfully) given up the whole younger, teenage pain-in-the-ass attitude. They were instead sisters on a road trip together, and they giggled at the people who stared at them. Sharon never spoke; she didn't know any Russian and pretended to be the shy one, while Natasha flitted around like a social butterfly, laughing and smiling.

Sharon's stomach grumbled; they were going to have to stop for food soon. She sighed, not wanting to wake Natasha up from what was probably the first sleep she'd had in ages, but after she parked outside a gas station she shook Natasha out of her slumber, nodding at the gas station.

"Oh yeah," Natasha slurred, blinking. "Food."

They ate cans of soup that they used the convenience store microwave to heat up, filled up the tank, and took off again. Natasha once again fell asleep, unbothered by the bumps in the road. Sharon knew that they had a working radio, but Natasha had taken it out and was tinkering with it when she was still awake. Natasha was no Tony Stark, but she knew something about that radio that would help them, so she left her to it.

They continued on like that for a few days, alternating between drivers. When Natasha wasn't sleeping, she was messing with the radio. Sharon found it harder to sleep, with her thoughts racing around in her head the way they were, but she did pass out somewhere between two and five in the morning. It was almost hard to believe it when they finally did pull into a small town, parking on the side of the street.

"Pretty in the middle of nowhere, huh?" asked Sharon quietly once they stepped out of the car.

Natasha checked her phone (another junk phone). "This is the place. Remember, let me do the talking."

"It's kind of hard for me to forget that I don't speak Russian, Romanoff."

Natasha smiled at her before walking up to an elderly man heading down the street and speaking with him in a low voice. He smiled at her and pointed to the north, gesturing animatedly at her while Natasha nodded and occasionally asked other questions. Sharon kept herself busy by staring at the town: dilapidated buildings, dirt roads, passerby who eyed them curiously. There was one main street, and what looked like farms spreading out from that. The overcast sky made the town look even gloomier than it actually was.

"We're heading north," Natasha said, having finished her conversation. "On foot. If we go by car, he'll see us coming and bolt. Might bolt anyway. Who knows?"

"Who exactly are we seeing?" Sharon asked.

"Probably better if I don't tell you."

It turned out to be a pretty damn long hike, one that wasn't helped by Sharon's lack of sleep for the past few days, not to mention the fact that she was still limping. How long until law enforcement caught up with them? How long until Yelena was back in action? They never seemed to have enough time, and here they were, in the middle of who-knew-where, doing who-knew-what. Natasha had never wasted Sharon's time yet, but she was really starting to question the Black Widow's sanity.

They came across a ramshackle hut, with one window in front and no others that Sharon could see. Natasha marched right up and rapped firmly on the door, then motioned for Sharon to move around the back of the dwelling. Sharon did as she was told, reaching uneasily for the gun strapped to her lower back, feeling a little better when she hefted it. She couldn't hear anything from the hut's interior.

Without warning, something cold was pressing down on her throat. It wasn't suffocating, but Sharon froze.

The man— she identified him as a man by his voice— spoke harshly in her ear, in Russian. When she didn't answer he repeated himself more urgently, tightening his grip around her throat.

"Look, I don't speak Russian," she hissed. "English. You speak English?"

The man paused. Before he could answer, however, he released her; Sharon whirled to find herself to staring into at wild eyes, greasy hair, and an unshaven profile. His hands were raised into the air, and he was holding still. The reason became obvious when Natasha walked from behind him, her glock aimed at his head.

"Black Widow," he greeted curtly, in English.

Natasha stopped pacing. She looked genuinely surprised. "You're more coherent than I was expecting."

The man gave a rusty laugh, looking down at his feet. "Believe me, _I'm_ more coherent than I was expecting, too. But bits and pieces have been coming back, and it's not… easier, but it's better. Even been able to help folks out around here, every now and then. They mostly leave me alone. Which is safer for everyone." He paused, suddenly looking a lot smaller. "How's Steve?"

Steve? Steve Rogers? Sharon looked harder at the man now, and—

"No," she said. "No, no. No way. That's not— that's impossible. You're not…"

He laughed again. "My face is plastered all over that damn museum, you'd think more people would recognize it by now."

"Please," Natasha snorted. "You've only got one panel. Try being plastered all over the Internet."

"Not much practice working with Wi-Fi," he admitted.

Bucky Barnes. _Holy shit_ , that was Bucky Barnes.

Sharon was still trying to process that while Bucky and Natasha continued their conversation, as though Natasha wasn't holding a gun to his head. There was a smirk curling up on Natasha's face, like she was enjoying this, but Barnes looked… tense. Jumpy. He was ready to bolt at any moment. He was straining to look relaxed, and he wasn't having much luck with it.

They were still talking, but of course the first words out of Sharon's mouth were, "Why the hell is Bucky Barnes living in a hut in Russia?"

Barnes' eyes became fixed on her, flinty gray cutting through her. Sharon had been on the receiving end of that look before, when Yelena had been staring her down in Moscow.

"I don't know you," he said.

"Barnes, Agent Sharon Carter. Sharon Carter, James Buchanan Barnes. Also known as the Winter Soldier, one of the best assassins in all of history."

Her last name didn't provoke a reaction from him. His code name, however, did provoke a reaction from her, which she hid with enormous effort. It'd been obvious that he was dangerous from the get-go, but hearing that name made her realize just how dangerous. It took considerable effort for her not to draw her own gun on him (who knew what kind of reaction that would have produced). Instead, she offered her hand for him to shake, unable to keep from bracing herself against getting her hand ripped off. Or something.

He looked down at it, then back up. "Think I'll pass on the handshake, sorry. Nice to meet you. Maybe. If Romanova here doesn't shoot me."

Natasha blinked. "Oh hey, you used my real last name. That's sweet."

"Does that mean you're going to let me off the hook?"

"Not a chance."

He sighed, turning to fully face Natasha. She didn't back down or change her expression, keeping herself calm while she leveled the muzzle of her gun at his face. Sharon wasn't really interested in watching the epic stare-down between two legendary assassins, but seeing as she had nothing better to do (and Natasha had declined to share her plan regarding Barnes with her), she folded her arms and waited for them to finish. It was just another day where she was clearly the sane one in this partnership.

"What do you want?" Barnes finally asked. It was hard to think of him as the Winter Soldier when he looked like a homeless man.

"I've been running into some old friends lately," Natasha said. "Well, one in particular. Maybe we could talk about it inside?"

"I'm fine out here, actually."

For the first time, Natasha looked frustrated. Her grip on her glock tightened imperceptibly. "What if I told you that I don't know this 'old friend', but she clearly knows me?"

The air stilled for a moment, while Barnes considered Natasha's words. At last, he nodded once, and preceded the two of them into the little hut.

The inside was cleaner than Sharon had been expecting, but then she supposed he was ex-military— even if that had been 70 years ago. The floor was dirt, and there was an old cot sitting in the corner, plus something that passed for a makeshift stove. Inevitably, the question of what he used for a bathroom jumped to mind, but Sharon would be damned before she asked that.

The fact that Barnes was willing to turn his back on them as he led them inside meant that either he was recovered enough to trust people again, or that he was confident enough in his abilities that he felt safe in turning his back. The latter sent a chill down her spine; objectively, she knew that she didn't stand a chance against the Winter Soldier if everything went to shit, but that didn't stop her from making different contingency plans that would (hopefully) get her and Romanoff out of there. She didn't know if Barnes would be able to overcome Natasha, and she didn't want to find out.

"You realize we're in the middle of nowhere, right?" grumbled Barnes. "If they had some way of eavesdropping, it wouldn't matter if we were inside or outside."

"I know." Natasha plopped herself down on his cot, leaning back against the wall and crossing her legs. "I just wanted to sit."

For the first time, Sharon didn't miss the way Natasha kept her posture open and relaxed, but her fists remained clenched. The gun had been holstered at some point while they were moving inside, but Sharon had a feeling that she could have it out and pointed at Barnes' head in a moment's notice. Her flippant words were a way to cover up her true intentions, but someone who knew her well enough could easily see through that. Evidently, Barnes could as well.

He sighed, sitting next to the stove. Sharon shuffled her feet, awkwardly remaining standing for a few moments before she gave up and sat cross-legged on the floor. Her own gun pressed uncomfortably into the small of her back as she pressed it to the cabin wall.

"So," Barnes said. "Judging by your vague implication, your memory's fucked up too."

"That's the short of it," Natasha replied.

"You expect me to believe that you never suspected this before?"

"I never had a reason to," Natasha said, shrugging. "I had my suspicions after I defected, but after the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors cleared me those suspicions faded. I already had one set of fake memories that I definitely knew about— why would I have another? I used to get flashbacks a lot, but I eventually convinced myself that they were just some of the more traumatic experiences of my training. Should've known that something was off when I could never remember what the flashbacks were about."

Barnes grunted. "I don't get those."

At Natasha's raised eyebrow, he elaborated. "I have holes. Like someone decided that my memory was target practice. But I haven't had any flashbacks. I wouldn't live this close to a village if I did."

"Huh." A brief smile flashed across Natasha's face. "You remind me of someone."

"You obviously hang around with the wrong people," said Barnes. His face darkened. "Look Black Widow, whatever you're hoping to accomplish here probably can't be done. I'm helping people out in the village when I can, but I'm the last person you want trying to help you psychologically. As for going back into the field… I don't know what'll happen if I go back."

"It's one of two things." Natasha's voice was quiet. "Either you break or you don't."

"You know you might not like what you find, right?"

"I already don't like it. That's not why I'm trying to do this, though. That's just a consequence of bringing down the Red Room, not the motivation."

Barnes didn't seem to have a reply for that, so Natasha sat up a little. Sharon looked at her until Natasha caught her gaze, inclining her head slightly. When Natasha nodded in return, she leaned back and returned her stare to the wood beams that made up the cabin's far well.

She knew that the Winter Soldier would be an asset for them; even the entirety of the Red Room stood little chance against him. But she also knew that if the Red Room had access to some of Barnes' old programming, then the entire thing would be a disaster. Evidently Natasha knew this as well, because she was now trying to convince Barnes to help her uncover her own triggers instead of helping the two of them directly.

"What if you one of your triggers is the same as mine?" he argued.

"Doubtful. That would be a compromise of security. Better to just use separate triggers for all their weapons."

"And if one of yours sends you into some kind of berserker mode? You want me to kill you?"

Natasha's eyes slid over to Sharon, and Sharon finally realized the real reason for their visit. When it came down to it, the Winter Soldier wasn't the only one she didn't stand a chance against. Sure, she'd managed to get the drop on Yelena, but that was because the other Black Widow had been mentally impaired at the time. Even then, it had required additional wounds from Natasha to bring her down, and even then they suspected that she wasn't dead. If they were lucky, she would be.

Neither she nor Natasha had been all that lucky since this whole thing had started.

"Fine," growled Barnes. "But we're going back outside. I don't want my cabin destroyed in the upcoming shit storm."

* * *

 **Washington DC, United States, 2006**

"You know what she asked me?" growled Fury.

Clint wasn't really paying attention. He was too distracted by the fact that (though he had been assured that Natalia was in the room) he couldn't see her. Not through the window. She was nowhere in sight. How the hell had she managed that? Her code name wasn't anything literal, was it? She hadn't really seemed like the type to climb too much— in his experience with her, she was more straightforward than that.

Fury snapped the question at him again.

"Huh?" Clint asked. Fury looked ready to explode. "Oh. Um… well I'm not you, sir, so… no."

For once, Fury let the smartass comment slide— which finally made Clint pay attention. Fury wasn't one to shy away from glaring at anyone who talked back to him, so when he didn't do so, it meant that he was very much preoccupied by something else. 'Something else', in this case, happened to be the redhead that was currently residing in a small cell in headquarters. She had been mostly quiet, until tonight.

"She asked me, 'What do you think it would look like if my cerebral fluid started coming out of my nose?' Ever since she lost it, we've been keeping her on suicide watch. Based on her comment, I'd say that she knows it, too. There's a good chance that her little question is her way of messing with us, but I'm not taking any chances. She still won't see any of the psychiatrists that we try to send in with her."

Oh. Yeah. Clint was there for that. Even when they didn't tell her that it was a psychiatrist, she somehow always knew, and the instant she knew, it was like— she was just gone. It was always instantaneous. The sharp focus in her eyes slipped away, and she'd get this vague look on her face like she was somewhere else in the world. That wasn't unusual in and of itself, but it was how quickly she could transition into that state of being that had Clint worried. He looked back into the room; still no sign of Natalia.

"What do you want me to do, sir?" he asked.

"You found her," Fury stated. "You convinced her to come in, by some miracle. You go talk to her, see if you can at least get her to agree to cooperate with one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychs. Maybe she'll at least listen to _you_ — thought she seems like she'd be smarter than that."

"I'm hurt," Clint said flatly. He felt that Fury was both right and wrong, in this case; she might have come in because he'd made a good case for it, but he suspected that both exhaustion and desperation had played a role in that, too. If Natalia had gotten any rest since her capture, then odds were that she was rethinking her decision. "I'll do whatever's necessary, sir."

Fury grunted, eyeing him. "Yeah," he muttered. "That's what you said when you were given this assignment."

Fury was a scary guy. Clint still caught his gaze and held it, though. This was one decision that he wasn't backing down on. In the official report, his reason for capturing instead of killing had been some bullshit like, "her skills make her a better asset than a target." His real reasons, however, were something that he'd only told Coulson. He trusted Coulson not to rat him out to Fury, no matter how loyal his handler was.

Fury left without another word, which Clint interpreted as, "Get to it."

The agent at the cell door gave him a curt nod, stiff-backed. Ordinarily Clint would have given him a slap on the back and told him to relax, but in this case even he was feeling too grim to be his normal, lighthearted self (lighthearted, heh). He keyed in the passcode to the cell, taking a steeling breath as the pneumatics hissed before the door opened. He stepped into the room, staying just inside the door frame until the door sealed shut behind him.

"The archer," a voice breathed into his ear. "I was wondering if they'd allow you to see me."

"Jesus fuckin'—"

God damn it. He did not want to almost be falling on his ass in front of her, yet here he was. He settled for taking a large step away instead, staring at her. She was pressed against the sliver of wall between the doorframe and the window— a blindspot, he realized, and of course she'd found it. There weren't any camera blind spots, but he hadn't thought to check the cameras before entering. He cursed himself out, suddenly wishing for his bow— he'd never been in an encounter with her without it.

"What," she asked flatly. Her accent made the word sharper.

Hell, he sucked at this kind of stuff. But he had to try, so of course the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "You look like shit."

She blinked once, before throwing her head back and laughing. It exposed the skin of her throat, a move that he realized she would normally never allow, which meant that she had some measure of trust for him. Huh. He could work with that. He could use that to his advantage (as horrible as that particular thought sounded).

Clint's words were the truth, though. There were bruises beneath both eyes— and indication that no, she had not gotten the rest he had assumed she'd gotten. There were red marks up and down her arms. The doctors had said that she'd been scratching at her arms during the… panic attack, or whatever the hell it was, but he now suspected that 'scratching' was an understatement. Her hair, which hadn't exactly looked great when he first got her out of the rubble, now hung in dirty red clumps. There had been a small shower in her old cell (she'd been moved from that after going on suicide watch) that she obviously hadn't used. She looked thinner than he'd ever seen her, too, even though it had only been about a week.

"Teeth chattering?" he asked, not really sure what else to open up with.

She tilted her head to the side. "I don't understand."

"You know." He shrugged, leaving his hand at his sides, palms turned outward. "Teeth chattering, shivering, difficulty controlling your breath. Those are all the classic symptoms, and they always feel like they never go away. And if it's bad enough, then you feel like you're going to collapse afterwards, but sometimes you still can't sleep. It sucks. Plus there's the whole. Y'know. Feeling like you're going to throw up the entire time."

She stared at him, like he wasn't speaking English. (Fair enough, she was Russian after all.)

"I'm just sayin'," he said.

Her mouth shifted. Abruptly, she went to stand at the wall on the other side of the cell's window, where she would again be invisible to those standing at the observation window. She leaned against it, arms crossed, expression utterly neutral.

Clint sighed and tried again. "Look, panic attacks are pretty normal—"

"I didn't have a panic attack."

"That's not what I heard."

"Your doctors have misconceptions about my symptoms," Natalia stated. "I… don't know what they are. But they are not panic attacks. Those were never allowed."

Well. That was probably even worse. Clint whistled a bit. He debated on whether moving closer to her was a good idea, but decided that taking a gamble on whatever trust he had gained from her wouldn't be beneficial to either of them. He stayed where he was instead, sitting cross-legged on the floor to reduce his threat level. He couldn't tell if she relaxed or not, but he liked to think that her posture became just the tiniest bit more open to him.

"Any idea what they are, then?" he asked.

Natalia shook her head. "They're just blank," she muttered. "Blank moments in my memory. Like I phase in and out of reality. One moment I will be here, and then the next I will not. You saw something similar to that in Palermo."

Clint didn't think he'd ever be forgetting Palermo anytime soon. He cast his mind back to that, to the way she'd gone from having a normal conversation with him (as normal as a conversation could be when it was held next to a man with a bomb strapped to his chest), and the next she was alternating between yelling Russian and English at him, the trigger slipping easily from her fingers, her entire body shaking in a way that it never would have if it was fully under her control—

He had his suspicions, but Clint found it was usually better to let the professionals make official diagnoses. "You should probably talk to one of the psych's one of these days," he admitted. The corner of Natalia's mouth curled up in something reminiscent of disgust, but he plowed on, forcing her to listen. "Yeah, I know what people like us think of psychiatrists these days. But they really are actually helpful, insofar as they're willing to listen to you talk. Talking's pretty good. The sooner you talk to them, the sooner Fury'll probably let you out of here."

Natalia gave a one-armed shrug at that. "Fury is an interesting one," she said; Clint allowed her to change the subject this time. "He is smarter than you. He does not trust anyone— what is the saying?— as far as he can throw them."

"You two are already ganging up on me," Clint whined. "No fair."

She smirked at him. "I think he is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that I cheated death at your hands— multiple times. Surely it must be some form of manipulation on my part, because my track record does not exactly mark me as the most charitable of persons. I wonder if he knows who he has to thank for the destruction of the Red Room?"

"Fury doesn't care about what you did for or to the KGB," Clint told her. "But a few of your freelance clients were anti-S.H.I.E.L.D., so he had to put his foot down in that case. You don't seem like the type of person to cause trouble for the fun of it, though, so I figured I could probably convince you to work with us instead of against us. Fury's a good guy, and he's a master at reading people (and manipulating them, don't forget that), but he doesn't go out into the field much. There are some calls that you can only make when you're target is in your sights, lined up and ready to be taken out."

"Or you wanted to avoid me killing you from the start?" Natalia asked bluntly.

"That too," he admitted, grinning at her. She seemed to prefer honesty, and his hunch was proven correct; she smirked again.

Natalia sagged a bit, which was probably as close as he would get to seeing her look exhausted. "I'll consider what you said about the psychiatrist," she said. "I don't trust them out of experience more than anything else, but I became a liability because of my… moments a long time ago. I would like to be of some use to S.H.I.E.L.D., and you're right in that they're less likely to accept me if I do not cede some form of control over to them. It is of no concern. I have done it before."

"It's not control," Clint insisted. "It's… they've never used it against me. They won't use it against you."

"Such faith." Now she even _sounds_ tired. It's enough to make him wince. "Again, I will consider it. Partially because it seems that I owe you, once again."

"Saving your life, I mean, yeah, but that debt's pretty easily repaid in our line of work."

Natalia's eyes snapped to his, startling him with the sudden blaze of intensity. "First of all," she said, "you gave me back much, _much_ more than my life. Secondly, I was not referring to your act of compassion towards me— and don't deny that that wasn't what it was. I am not a fool. I also appreciate it, to the extent that my cynical personality can. No, I was referring to the fact that you just informed me of your own mental handicaps."

"Oh." He thought back on the conversation. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Whether it was willful or not, you placed some trust in me," she said. "I will not let that be in vain. I will endeavor to recover, if only to prove to you that I am not the lowest human being on the planet."

Clint looked at her, leaning against the wall casually like any other person might, saying these things like she was just talking about the weather. She seemed to tower above him in that moment. It was aweing, to be honest. There weren't many times in his life when Clint Barton was humbled, but this was one of them.

(She was still so obviously broken. The signs that she was struggling to hold herself together were all there, but the fact that she was trying at all— that, he felt was a testament to her strength.)

"Believe me," he said— not trust, that had to be earned— "I never thought that of you."

* * *

 **Countryside, Russia, 2014**

"Thanks for calling," said May. "You didn't check in for a few days. I'm not complaining— we've had our own issues to deal with here— but I've been keeping an ear out for news of you, and everything's been quiet. That usually means everything's fine, but I've never liked the quiet."

"I can feel the concern, May," Natasha replied. "Really touching."

"Don't sass me, Romanoff," Melinda ordered.

"I wouldn't if I didn't know that you have to put up with Coulson's sassing on a regular basis." Natasha switched the phone to her other ear. "My sass is tame compared to his."

"Don't get me started. I have a headache."

"Sorry." Natasha was sporting an ugly one of her own, after a day of trying to work through the one trigger that they did know existed. Sharon and Barnes had worked together to decipher the Russian word that Yelena had used; Sharon had been the one to hear it (Natasha couldn't remember it), and Barnes was the one with sufficient knowledge of Russian to figure out what it was from Sharon's garbled attempts. She hadn't been allowed to sit in on that particular conversation in case she was triggered accidentally, but once they figured it out? It had been hours of being rendered unconscious and trying to find some way to counter it.

Barnes wasn't any better at knowing how to deal with triggers than she was, but he was equipped to handle her if one of the triggers caused her to do more than just collapse. For now, they weren't attempting to do anything other than work with the one they already knew, and they weren't getting very far on that. It would have been helpful if she knew the counter-trigger (there was almost always a counter-trigger built in somewhere), but they had to work with what they had. Which meant that she had to figure some way to snap out of her daze.

Using the trigger over and over again apparently also had the added benefit of having side-effects. Hence, the headache.

"Look, I get that you hate being out of control, or whatever," Barnes had told her brusquely, just before they quit for the day. "But there might not be any easy fix for this. I don't remember much from before getting captured, but I do remember some of the soldiers I fought with. I remember one comin' home, seeing a manhole cover, and screaming for his life. These things don't magically go away, Black Widow."

"I know," she said. "But they're a liability I can't afford."

He'd smiled ruefully. "I'd offer to go help tear the Red Room down, but if you're a liability, then I'm definitely one."

She'd smiled back. "That's exactly why I didn't ask."

"Not much to report on this end," May said, bringing Natasha back to the present. "How's Carter?"

"Improved. She still walks with a limp, but she's recovering. It'll take time, and I plan to keep her from running on it as much as I can."

"Good." Melinda May was never one for heavy conversation; she preferred to speak through actions rather than words. It was one of the many reasons why Natasha held so much respect for the other woman; it was hard to find someone as competent and single-minded when it came to getting a job done as her. "I think that Coulson would be more concerned about your situation, but like I said. We're preoccupied right now. You're still keeping in contact with your team, right?"

"I have a contact." One of Melinda's stipulations when Natasha had first contacted her after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell was that she kept the new, budding S.H.I.E.L.D. secret from everyone— including the rest of the Avengers. Clint knew (or she suspected he knew; she'd be very surprised if he didn't), but Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Thor were unaware that any part of the organization remained. She suspected that that was part of the reason why Tony seemed to be withdrawing in on himself more. In return, Natasha told Melinda that she would not reveal information on the Avengers to her unless it was crucial. They were separate organizations now, though she suspected that Fury wouldn't like the idea of no one keeping an eye on the Avengers.

Too bad for Fury. He gave up his leadership position, fair and square.

"Alright," May said. "If that's everything, I have work to do. Take care of yourself, Natasha."

"Thanks, Agent May." Natasha hung up, before typing in another number that she'd memorized and waiting while the phone rang. It took a couples of tries, but eventually she was rewarded by a click and a groggy, "Hello?"

Natasha was actually a little mortified. "Were you actually asleep for once? Sorry about that."

"'S alright." There was the very obvious sound of Bruce stifling a yawn. "I was only half asleep. Probably. I don't know, the phone rang and I realized that my face was on a microscope. So it's a good thing you woke me up. Uh… anyway, hi."

"Hi," she replied, unable to stop herself from smiling. "So what were you doing before I disturbed your microscope-faceplanting stupor?"

Natasha was intelligent, but she would never be on the level of Tony or Bruce. All the same, she enjoyed when Bruce launched into an explanation on what he was working on. In spite of his seemingly perpetual state of self-loathing (she liked to think she was finding ways around that, but she wasn't sure yet), he always lit up when he was talking about anything related to science. She was sitting in the grass outside, appreciating the air of a warm evening, reclining against a tree. Come to think of it, this setting wasn't so different from the one she had found him in.

He finished his explanation, and she made an attempt to summarize what he was trying to do. He would then make small corrections to her summaries, then allow her to try again, and then repeat the process until they were both sure that she understood at least the gist of what he was experimenting with on that particular day. This had become their routine whenever she called to check in with him— one that the both of them seemed to find relaxing. Natasha was never allowed to let down her guard against her surroundings, but she could let down her guard against him.

"So Stark's trying to drag you along on his 'crash course in arc reactor technology'," is the conclusion she arrives at.

"Something like that," he agrees. "I wish I could say it was just related to clean energy, but the thing is… I'm not sure anymore. Tony's not different on the surface, but it's small, barely noticeable things that have changed. He doesn't chatter as much in the lab anymore. He sleeps even less than he used to, if that's possible. I haven't seen as much of Pepper around, either— and the weird part is, I don't think there's anything wrong with their relationship. So I don't really know what's going on."

"He's paranoid," Natasha stated. "S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and he feels like he's the only one of us who has the means to keep us together. Maybe he'll get over it, maybe he won't. Hopefully we can find some way to get through to him before he collapses from exhaustion and starts drooling on the floor. Is he awake right now?"

There was a faint rustle, probably of Bruce shifting to look around, before he spoke again. "I don't know. He's not in here, but he could be in another lab or his workshop. JARVIS?"

Faintly, Natasha heard JARVIS answer. "JARVIS says that he's actually asleep for once. Pepper's with him." There was a brief pause, where the two of them enjoyed their silent companionship. Natasha still sometimes had trouble coming to terms with the fact that the Avenger whose company she sought out the most was also the one that she was most wary of on the battlefield (though less out of fear now, and more out of the small worry that he might accidentally swipe her into a building). Not that she ever intended to let Bruce know that she sought him out— at least, not yet— and she hid that fact from him by making him think it was because he was the one with the means to study her blood and tissue samples.

"How are things on your end?" he asked her.

"Alright."

Bruce didn't ask her to elaborate, and for that she was grateful. Considering that triggers were a sensitive topic for the both of them, it was probably better that they didn't discuss them at all. If they ever did, better to do so face-to-face. She also didn't know what his reaction would be to hearing that she'd been able to track down Bucky Barnes after Steve and Sam had failed, but she suspected that she would be getting a call from an enraged Steve.

Or, he would _try_ to call her. She'd abandon this particular phone before that could happen.

The least she could do was update Bruce on Sharon's condition, since she had called to ask him about how to treat her. "Sharon's doing much better. She still has a limp, but on the surface the wound is mostly healed. It'll be a while before she's ready to fight again, but we have time to recover, for the moment."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said.

There was always this one moment, when Natasha called Bruce, when she was tempted to spill what was really going on in her mind. But that would cross the thin, invisible line that they'd set for themselves, disrupting the tranquility that their conversations possessed. She let out a long breath, closed her eyes, and let the moment pass, knowing that Bruce was waiting for her to speak in silence on the other end. There would be time for this later, when she wasn't on the run from the C.I.A. and the Red Room. When she could actually breathe freely again, knowing that this last ghost was laid to rest.

(When she knew for sure that there wasn't some stray word in the Russian language that would make her kill him.)

"Well, I don't want to keep you," Bruce said at last. "So… I'll just—"

"Right, yeah." Natasha smiled, all too aware that Bruce couldn't see it. "As per usual—"

"You don't know when you'll be contacting me next, but expect it to be at some ungodly hour when I'll probably be awake even if no one else is?"

"It's only seven P.M. here," retorted Natasha.

"I know you're perfectly capable of calculating time zones."

It was true, but Natasha could've continued to rib him and played clueless; she decided to take pity on him instead. She stood.

"Get some sleep, Bruce," she told him. "You sound like you could use it."

"Will do," he chuckled. "Stay out of trouble."

Natasha gave a laugh, realizing only after she'd hung up that it had been a little throaty. Eh. Well, even if Bruce read too much into that, he'd probably write it off as her being just as exhausted as he was. She headed back to the cabin, pausing momentarily by the door when she heard voices inside. She was surprised; she never expected Barnes to be the type to hold conversation with anyone, much less with a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Curiosity kept her at the door, even though she was aware that she was probably violating their privacy (the two had known each other for a few hours; the odds that they were discussing anything earth-shattering were low).

"I do not," Barnes was muttering. He sounded petulant.

"Except you kind of do," retorted Sharon. "I know we can't all look like we've just stepped out of Perfect Land, like Captain Rogers does—"

"What does that even _mean_?"

"Now, now, ladies," Natasha said, smirking as she pushed the door open. "When you've gotten the abs that Captain Rogers has, then maybe you'll be able to pull off the same thing."

Sharon gave her a look. "You're worse than he is. You've got the whole, 'Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline' thing going."

That got a laugh out of Natasha. Barnes just looked more confused than ever, harrumphing and rolling to face away from them on the floor. It was a mockery of trying to get some sleep, and Natasha eyed him closely— she doubted that he would trust himself to sleep without having night terrors at this point. Indeed, his back was too tense for him to have relaxed. Sharon was looking at him as well; she had her arms wrapped around her knees, her back against the wall. Natasha mirrored her pose as she sank down to the floor.

"You should probably take the bed," she suggested. "You need rest, especially with your knee being fucked up."

Sharon's gaze switched to her, for once unreadable. "It's not that fucked up," she replied after a moment. "Besides, you've been sleeping less than I have. You need it more. Since you're the one trying to… train the triggers out of yourself, or something."

For once, Natasha was unwilling to argue. She made her way to the bed and lay down carefully, arranging herself so that she was on her side, angled in the direction of Barnes. She would probably end up sleeping (if only out of necessity), but she intended to keep an eye on him for as long as possible. He was still a fuse waiting to be lit, and she couldn't afford to let that happen.

"You wanna know what I think?" Sharon asked.

"That Barnes needs a haircut?"

"Besides that." Sharon fidgeted with something in her hands, and Natasha realized that she'd been holding her gun in them the entire time she'd been in the hut alone with Barnes. One less thing to worry about then. "You ever think that maybe you're not the one responsible for stopping what's going on with the Red Room? You ever think that you don't have to do this with a ragtag team of washed-up assassins and spies? Why isn't Agent Barton here, Natasha? Or Rogers. Why isn't Stark backing you up with tech? It seems impractical."

Ah. This talk. Natasha had sensed it was coming up for a while now; Sharon wasn't the type to follow blindly. She had her own form of pride, and it was choosing to rear its head now. She did wonder why Sharon was having this conversation with Barnes within earshot of every word— but then, it was Sharon's decision, not her own. There wasn't anything she was really uncomfortable saying in front of him; odds were that he wouldn't care.

"They're high profile," she answered. "All of them. Well, maybe not Clint— but he's been cagey for a while, and he'd be reluctant to get involved. But if the Red Room got even the slightest hint that the rest of the Avengers were onto them, they'd go dark. Almost impossible to find. I'm willing to bet that even Yelena would be recalled, and kept hidden or sent on other missions. It would take years before they were confident enough to resurface, and trust me— by then, it'd be too late for those girls."

"Okay." Sharon paused. "Why me, then? I know I've asked this before. I want the truth this time."

Natasha rolled onto her back, folding her hands on her stomach. It was a tactic for delaying the conversation, and both she and Sharon were aware of it, but she had to hide the fact that she wasn't sure how to respond, for once. She could feel Sharon's eyes on her, burning a hole in her side while the other woman waited for an answer. Sharon Carter was a patient woman, but also a persistent one; she'd be getting her answer, one way or another.

She was also someone who didn't really appreciate platitudes, so Natasha simply said, "You seemed like someone I could trust."

"And now?"

"Now?" Natasha rolled back to face her. "Now I know I was right."

Sharon furrowed her brow, considering this. "Thanks," she said, quieter. "That means a lot. Skillset-wise, though, I'm not ideal. May would've been better."

"Agent May has her own problems," Natasha told her, and watched carefully for her reaction. Sharon was decent at concealing her emotions, but she couldn't quite hide the way her expression froze when Natasha said, 'Agent'. The implication was there, out in the open— where even Barnes could hear it. She didn't know which Sharon was more surprised at: that she said it in front of him, or that she admitted it at all.

"I see," Sharon said at last, carefully neutral.

They both fell silent after that, and when Natasha next glanced at Sharon it was to find the other woman asleep. She checked on Barnes next, whose form had not lost its tension. That meant that Sharon felt some measure of trust for the former assassin and Hydra asset, which should've been counterintuitive. Maybe it was their light conversation about his hair that did the trick. Or maybe it was trusting Natasha to keep an eye on him, even though Sharon had said that Natasha should be getting some sleep.

That thought disturbed Natasha more than it should have.

 _You weren't entirely truthful, either._

Natasha sort of froze up at the realization.

The problem was this: Natasha had, at first, felt nothing at the thought of dumping all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets on the Internet. She had been fully prepared to face the music, to atone for her sins in a way that hadn't been possible before: by exposing herself and all of her darkness to the world at large. She knew that it meant that anonymity would be nigh impossible for her afterwards, but she had refused to let herself think about it. It was what Steve had ordered, and Steve had had the right of it in the end.

The panic didn't start until later, in the middle of the Capitol Hill hearing. She had said her words of defiance to the members of Congress, sashayed out of the building like it was no one's business, and then gathered one or two belongings and went dark. There was evidence that Steve tried to contact her during that time period, as well as Clint, and even Stark (through Hill). She never even knew about it, much less answered them. For two months she ran around the world, never stopping, hitchhiking through forests and deserts alike, always too jittery to stay in one place for very long. She never stopped long enough to even think about what she was doing.

She did, on a train ride, have the realization that it was a little too close to her days after post-Red Room(or when she thought the Red Room had fallen— who knew what the truth was now). As though that epiphany was a prophecy, she was then attacked and nearly taken captive by Hydra while in Mumbai, something that she only managed to avoid by playing unconscious and then stabbing someone with a knife taken off their belt. She'd then staggered from the darkened parking garage, bleeding from her side, and managed to stow away on a fishing boat until she could sneak back into the city under cover of darkness.

Five days after that was the first time she stumbled into Stark Tower and passed out on the couch, waking up to find Bruce in an armchair across from her with a mug of tea, which he handed to her. He'd then passed on the word from Stark that she was allowed to stay as long as she liked.

Natasha left the next day.

The same sort of incident repeated itself a couple of times, until she finally sat herself down in a hotel in London and meditated for an hour, trying to get herself under control (the last thing she wanted was to have another flashback— oh, _right_ ). She managed to sort out her thoughts enough to determine that she was just running, again and again. The others had always been patient when she crashed at Stark Tower, as though they knew. Smug bastards. Or they would've been, if she'd decided to come back.

Instead, Natasha identified the opportunity that she had been presented with. Yes, all of her covers had been blown, but at the same time it was like having a clean slate. She would now have time to figure herself out— who she was without all the layers, without the sense of having a greater purpose. She slowed her running pace, identified a few Hydra hideouts and took them down neatly, making everything look like accidents. In other places, she acted like a tourist, tried new hobbies. It was clumsy work, trying to figure out who she was, and she wasn't all that sure she liked it. In some ways, it was no surprise at all that she latched onto the whispers of the Red Room's return. Before S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fall, she would have been willfully ignorant. Now, however, it seemed like most of her fears had been banished.

Which was stupid, of course. But Natasha decided that she was allowed to be stupid, sometimes.

Her gaze returned to Sharon. The other woman was a bigger part of all that than she knew. Part of Natasha— the curious part of her that, she discovered, was closer to the forefront than before— had thought that, in addition to forging a new sense of self, it might be a good idea to forge some new relationships as well. Even if she couldn't quite admit that, and thus had to go about it in such a way so that it looked like work to everyone else.

Even so. Objectively, Natasha knew that Sharon could die in the process of helping her. That didn't mean it would be easy if it happened.

Sharon woke up after another hour of rest, blinking blearily before realizing that Natasha was staring at her. "Something on my face?" she murmured, amused, before waving her away. "Get some rest. I can tell you haven't let yourself sleep. I'll keep an eye on things."

Natasha nodded, letting her eyes slip closed. Whatever her feelings on the matter might be, she did know that she would always be grateful to Sharon Carter.


	10. Chapter 10: If Emotions Were Fake

**A/N:** Alright guys, now things are really heating up for 248. Also, we have Natasha working something out with Bucky. That's about all I'm going to say at this point.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

The woman did not come bearing a knife, this time.

248 started screaming after seven days in the room, the hinges on her box finally giving way when the lights came on again, denying her the sleep she needed. She was distantly aware of being carried away by the men in black— _guards,_ she reminded herself, feeling angry— and shoved back into her room. She managed to quiet herself after a moment, passing out from exhaustion the moment she hit her cot.

She was awoken feeling like the water had been sucked out of her mouth, and she managed to force herself through the morning meal only to be hurt badly during combat training. It was also the most difficult informative session that 248 had been through, but she kept her exhaustion in a box as instructed, and did not give any indication whatsoever that she was as tired as she was. Even when called upon, 248 gave the correct answer. Today they were learning about media: the things that children used for entertainment and the things that adults used for entertainment. As the lesson ended, she realized that getting back to her room would most likely be the hardest part.

Indeed, it was. 235 attempted to kill her. 248 killed her instead, by stepping on her throat hard enough that her face turned purple; her hands were shaking too much to use. She did not know what to do with the body, so she left it where it was. It was gone the next morning.

The woman was there for combat training. She looked worse than 248 had after being beaten by 249. It was the closest that 248 ever came to beating her; she landed a kick in her gut which brought her to the ground, and the only reason the woman got out of 248's chokehold was because she used her greater size and weight to throw her off. Such a throw meant that 248 slammed into the wall, dazed, and found the woman's hand at her throat before she could move. The woman paused, then backed up and nodded at her, face revealing nothing.

There were a few other girls missing, which meant that they were either dead or undergoing the same process that 248 had. She took another fighting stance, waiting for the woman to make the first move (she always did). Then she needed to focus all of her efforts on combat, leaving little room for anything else.

The woman was beaten, bruised, but it was the most difficult fight that 248 had ever had with her. Her movements, usually so smooth, had more of an edge to them now, and she was fast enough to be a blur in 248's vision. The result was a series of kicks and punches, every single one of them landing on 248 in spite of her attempts to dodge them. 248 realized, somewhere between receiving a foot to her ribs and a fist to her ear, that the woman had been holding back in every other sparring match between them.

It ended when the woman threw her into the wall with one arm. 248 watched her, waiting for her to make the kill move (she had decided that she was likely to die in this fight). The woman was not giving off any signs that the fight had left her weakened in any way, but she still did not move, even while 248 waited. Just as 248 was trying to decide if launching an attack of her own was a good idea, the woman collapsed.

All of the other girls froze, even the ones in the middle of a fight. The combat instructor shouted for the guards, who came in and carried the woman away. 248 was assigned to 210 for the rest of the session. She was confused when 210 offered her a smile and a hand up, and later sat next to her during mealtime (they were not allowed to speak, but Madame B. once spoke about the benefits of company with another). She even allowed 210 to walk back with her, waiting for one of two things: either others would come to attack them, or 210 was going to attack her.

Neither of those things happened. 210 merely smiled at her when they reached her room, then moved down the hallway to her own room.

It happened again, and again. 210's blows landed softer than the other girls in combat training. She ate with 248 at all meals. She chose to walk back to her room with her at the end of the day. She was certain that 218 once attempted to ambush them, but the other girl had walked away when she realized that they were not alone. 248 did nothing to deter 210 in this, but she did nothing to encourage it, either. She chose not to speak to Madame B. about it, though Madame B. did question her about the other girls a few times.

The day it became too much was the day that, while they were walking back to their rooms, 210 leaned close to her ear, warm breath brushing her skin, and whispered, "I think they're wrong."

The sound of speech almost left 248 too surprised to react— almost. She did not have to think about it, really. Her hand came up and wrapped around 210's throat, and then the other trainee was up against the wall, her hands trying to pry 248's grip off of her.

248 opened her mouth to— what? Reprimand her? Ask her why she said that? No sound came out. Speaking was prohibited. The guards would come. They would beat her. She would be left with bruises the next day, and she would rather not face off against 210 with bruises. Not even if 210 refused to hit as hard as the other trainees.

210 stopped struggling, staring at 248. She smiled.

"I have spoken in these halls before," she said. "They never come."

Lie. It had to be. The girls were told that lying was a tool that they should learn to use. Most likely 210 was lying now. Even as the thought crossed her mind, 248 had to dismiss it as illogical. Why would 210 lie about this? If the guards did come, then she was the one who would be dragged away to be beaten.

248 stepped back, releasing the other girl. Haltingly, unused to speaking to anyone other than Madame B., she asked, "What are they wrong about?"

248 was not sure of what she should call the expression that appeared on the other girl's face, but if she had to give it a name, she'd call it happy.

* * *

 **Russian Countryside, 2014**

A muffled groan turned Sharon's attention toward the woman who had been lying prone on the ground, like she was dead. It never got less unnerving, even though this was probably the twentieth time that Natasha had insisted one of them say the trigger. Barnes always grimaced when he was the one to say it, like he was half expecting the trigger to drop him as well. Sharon kept her face blank when it was her turn (her Russian pronunciation of the word was improving, but it was _just that one word_ )— Natasha tolerated Barnes' distaste, but Sharon thought that her own wouldn't be appreciated.

"Again," Natasha groused.

"You've improved by three minutes," deadpanned Barnes. "That's so much better."

"Shut the fuck up, Barnes."

"You think maybe it's time to accept that you can't get past this?" he snapped. "Go fight the Red Room if you want, and pray to God that Yelena decides to fight fair. Given that she comes from the same place as us, that isn't likely, in which case pray to God that Carter can handle her."

"For the record," Sharon stated, "I can't."

Natasha's face was completely and utterly unreadable. Not that she was very readable at the best of times, but there was always some kind of emotion on her face, whether it was fake or real. Sharon felt the stirrings of uneasiness in the pit of her stomach as the red haired woman stared at Barnes, who didn't give an inch. The three of them were sitting in a haphazard triangle in the dirt outside the cabin, under the heat of the sun. Sharon looked between the two assassins, then sighed inwardly and took a sip from her water bottle.

Abruptly, Natasha stood.

"Spar with me," she ordered.

It wasn't immediately obvious who she was talking to— Barnes or Sharon. After her eyes flicked over to Sharon in warning, however, it was easy enough for Sharon to conclude that it wasn't her. She stood up and backed away while Barnes and Natasha rose, mirroring one another's stances. Judging by the smirk on Barnes' face, he wasn't completely opposed to the abrupt change of plans. Natasha, for once, didn't look like she intended to make a joke about it anytime soon.

Barnes made the first move— a mad dash for Natasha, who slid fluidly under his fist in a kick that was intended to sweep his feet out from under him. He countered with a one-armed cartwheel to the side, Natasha crouching and rolling in the opposite direction. They moved through a lightning-fast series of punches and kicks, alternately attacking and deflecting, before Natasha launched herself into a spinning kick that caught Barnes in the midsection. On any other opponent it would've knocked the wind out of them. On Barnes, it only knocked him back a step, which was plenty of time for Natasha to perform a move that Sharon would have only expected to see in a movie.

It involved her jumping at Barnes, doing something like a handstand on his shoulders, and then leveraging her own body weight so that she was able to _throw_ him across the grass. Barnes landed upright, in a crouch, but he looked impressed before they went at it again.

The fight didn't seem like it was going to end— ten minutes in, and neither one looked tired. Sharon took mental notes where she could— that Natasha liked to use fluid acrobatics as opposed to simple strength but that she never pulled her punches, that Barnes used his legs when he could but wasn't as good at using his greater weight as he could've been, and that both seemed to like to get in the air and above their opponent when they could. Natasha's insane throwing move aside, Barnes had managed to flip himself over her head at one point, twisting in midair to avoid her attempt to grab his arm.

Not that it wasn't entertaining to watch— it certainly beat waiting for Natasha to unfreeze after lying limp for thirty minutes— but Sharon kind of felt like she was missing the point here.

The moment the thought crossed her mind (she had great timing), Natasha faltered.

Barnes saw it, and tried to veto his move but only ended up crashing into the redhead, so that the pair fell into a pile of uncoordinated limbs. Startled, Sharon moved forward cautiously, noticing that Natasha's muscles had suddenly locked up and her pupils were blown wide. Barnes jumped off of her, backing away, looking suddenly wary. The redhead's mouth formed a wordless snarl as she stared at him, some sort of guttural Russian escaping her lips.

Barnes responded in kind, more quietly. Sharon came up beside him.

"What is—?" she started to ask, but then Natasha's eyes locked on her, and they—

 _Shit._

She'd seen that look before.

Natasha launched herself at her, leaving Sharon barely enough time to jump back in order to avoid Natasha's grab. "Hey!" she yelled, but the Avenger didn't seem to hear her. She took a wild swing that was easy for Sharon to dodge, nothing like the precision of her earlier moves against Barnes. Natasha hissed something else, making Sharon feel fear for the first time since— well, since Yelena. Damn it.

"Fuck," cursed Barnes, echoing her internal monologue. "She's have a flashback. God damn it, she _wanted_ me to trigger a fucking flashback!"

He intercepted Natasha's next move, grabbing her arm and wrenching it behind her back. Natasha responded by laughing, not sounding dissimilar to Yelena. Sharon watched as Barnes wrestled her to the ground, feeling bile rising in her throat. Yelena— slightly unstable, hell-bent agent of the Red Room with some kind of complex surrounding fellow Black Widow Natasha Romanoff— was one thing, but witnessing Natasha Romanoff lose all of her perfected masks, just like that? It was more than unnerving, it was sickening. Sickening that even now, years after she'd escaped the world of the Red Room and the horrors there, she was still shattered underneath the layers she'd created.

"Romanoff, come on!" snarled Barnes, slapping away a hand that was attempting to strangle him.

Natasha's gaze was still fixed on Sharon. She smiled.

"The American cannot protect you," she said, her voice heavily accented. "What will you do?"

Sharon stared back at her. She had an idea, but she was aware that Natasha would most likely consider it a breach of trust. Or would she? Natasha tended to flirt with trust like she expected it to be a short relationship. Maybe, in this case, she _wanted_ Sharon to do this.

When she came to, they were going to have serious talk about Natasha's compulsion to manipulate her.

Sharon spoke the trigger. Natasha went limp.

Barnes released her after a few moments, standing up and breathing heavily.

"I didn't sign up for this bullshit."

The statement startled a laugh out of Sharon. She stared down at the limp form of her friend, feeling her fists clench and unclench.

(Friend? Since when had Romanoff become her friend? Someone who liked to be enigmatic to the point of being a pain in the ass, who would tear her way through Red Room soldiers to save her life, who joked around when they were on the run from the CIA, who didn't have the self-preservation instinct that Sharon had initially believed she had, who— oh. Well. She was her friend.)

"I want to help her," Sharon said, not realizing that she was speaking, at first. "I want to help her get those girls out of there, because I know how she feels about that— and how _I_ feel about that. But not if she does this to herself. She's an idiot."

"I know a thing or two about idiots," Barnes grumbled. "I know that there's no stopping 'em."

"Damn right, Barnes."

Sharon blinked at Barnes. Barnes blinked back at her. They both looked down to where Natasha was smirking at them, dirt in her hair, looking for all the world like she was in the middle of the worst hangover of her life— but, amazingly, she was conscious.

Barnes spluttered. "How the _fuck_ —"

"I had a theory," Natasha said, as she accepted Sharon's hand up. "It took me a while to get over my flashbacks when I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. The trigger words always have too quick of an effect for me to combat them right away, so I figured that if I was already fighting back a flashback I'd have won half the battle against the trigger word."

"I don't think that's how it works," Sharon said faintly.

Natasha shrugged.

"Two questions," growled Barnes, looking pissed. "How the hell did you figure that fighting _me_ would trigger a flashback? Also, what's your plan now? Just trigger a flashback in the middle of your fight with the Red Room, and pray that someone will trigger you even though they can probably figure out you're impaired by the memory anyway?"

Natasha flipped him off. "I don't have a whole lot to go on, Barnes. I'll take what I can get. As for the other question, it was a hunch. In 2009, after you shot me near Odessa, I had one of the worst flashbacks since I'd joined S.H.I.E.L.D. Freaked my partner out to hell, and he knows what I was like during my mercenary days."

"Your super-secret spy cowboy routine ain't fooling anyone, Romanoff."

"Says the hermit cyborg."

"Oooookay," said Sharon. "I think that's enough 'practice' for everyone today, Natasha."

Barnes looked more than ready to agree. Natasha gave Sharon one of her I-know-what-you're-thinking-but-I'm-not-going-to-say-what-it-is stares before nodding.

Natasha ended up going to town to buy beer, tossing her findings at Sharon and Barnes when she got back. It was cheap, and Sharon grimaced when she drank it, but she finished the bottle and ended up getting coaxed into telling stories about pretending to be Captain America's neighbor for two years. She even recounted the time he'd tried to ask her out, which got Barnes to laugh out loud. She said nothing about her sort-of-maybe regrets over saying no, although Natasha kept poking her in the side in a completely not-subtle way.

"Would you _stop_ ," she said after the fifth time, squirming away. Natasha snickered.

"You think _that's_ good," Barnes chuckled. "You should hear the fondue story." He leaned back after he said it, as though he was surprised at the words that left his mouth.

"Oh, _that_ one," Natasha said.

"Why am I even surprised that you know about it?" complained Barnes. Then he squinted at Natasha. "Wait a fuckin' second— you don't know anything about it. You liar."

"Guilty," replied Natasha. "So what's the story?"

"Don't think I wanna tell you now."

For cripes' sake, it was like the two were born to argue with each other. With a sigh, Sharon idly spun her bottle on the floor next to her while the comfortable conversation devolved into thinly-veiled insults thrown at one another. She wasn't sure why the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow seemed to be reduced to squabbling children around one another, and she didn't have much interest in delving into _that_ particular detail very far. Natasha ended up being the one telling the stories this time, about her failed attempts to set Rogers up on dates (with Sharon being one of them). Sharon felt herself dozing off in the warm evening, and only had a few moments to revel in the fact that she felt safe in the presence of two of the most dangerous people in the world before she was lost to sleep.

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

248 and 210 were huddled in 210's room. It was not 248's first time visiting the other girl's room, but it almost always took her several minutes to muster up her courage to step inside. Though it had never been stated explicitly, she felt that this was also breaking a rule, and she was constantly afraid that the guards would come in and take them both to be beaten. They never did, but she was always waiting for it to happen.

210, by contrast, always looked relaxed. She would sit cross-legged on her bed and invite 248 to sit next to her, where they would have whispered conversations together. They spoke about the day's Information Session, and how they were worried about being able to memorize everything that they were supposed to memorize. Languages were becoming a part of their lessons now, and in addition to the language itself they were being asked to learn dialects and accents. When asked which language she liked, 248 had replied that that didn't matter.

"I like Mandarin," said 210.

If 210 was able to say something like that…

"I think Italian is nice," 248 replied.

The woman never returned to train in combat with her, so 210 remained her partner. She found it was easy to defeat 210, and she suspected that 210 was not actively trying to fight her, though she did not know why. She wondered if it was something that she should speak to Madame B. about, but it was as though something got stuck in her throat whenever she tried. All the while her body continued to develop, and her fighting skills continued to improve (even though there were still others who were better).

There was a period of three weeks where none of the girls who were left died. It was a time that 248 decided to label as 'good' in her head. There was an announcement that the girls would soon be taken out into the world to learn, one by one, so that they could become accustomed to interacting with real people instead of their instructors. They learned how to construct and deconstruct various firearms. It became easier for them not to speak, and more difficult for them to make any sort of expression. When 248 was asked to smile, she felt like it stretched over her face and twisted it into something ugly.

She would often find herself looking into a similar grimace from 210.

Those three weeks ended when she found herself being awoken in the middle of the night by four guards. They did not grab her, instead ordering her to follow them. She almost panicked because the guards never came for them in the middle of the night, but she forced that feeling of fear into her box, as always, and walked in the middle of the four guards as instructed.

They took her to a small, unfamiliar room. The woman was standing in the corner. Much like 248's own, her face held no expression. She wondered for a brief moment what it would look like if the woman were to smile. She did not think it would be as terrifying as her own.

There was a door at the other end of the room. The guards stopped with her in the middle, before they too retreated to the corners of the room. The door at the other end opened to reveal Madame B. walking in, with 210 following behind her.

210 was smiling.

"You did very well," said Madame B. She was speaking to 210. She looked at 248 next. "And you, 248. You did very well to never quite trust her completely. I am impressed by your restraint. But I have noticed that you tend to survive here by making yourself small, unnoticed. That is a commendable trait, but I am unsure if it is the best one. Can you prove to me that you would successfully deceive someone?"

248 could not speak. She did not have permission.

"She trusted me enough to speak," said 210. Her voice was clear and high.

"Yes, I know."

A hand curled around 248's wrist then, and a knife was slapped into her palm. She changed the grip on it to something more comfortable, noticing that 210 had been given the same weapon. 210 was no longer smiling, and 248 found herself relaxing at the absence of it.

Mistake.

210 lunged for her, slashing at her face quickly enough to leave a gash on her cheek before flipping the grip and attempt to stab her through the gut. 248 reacted in time to deflect it, her own knife feeling awkward in her grip. They had never trained with weapons before. That was due to begin soon, the Instructor had said, but she had not specified when. She did not understand how 210 could have such a good comprehension of how to wield the knife properly.

At least she was not smaller than 210, so there was no disadvantage in size. She did, however, have the disadvantage of not knowing exactly how good of a fighter that 210 truly was. She knew that 210 had been holding back during their bouts in combat training, much like the woman had, and like the incident with the woman, she was unprepared for how outmatched she was. The result was that she became defensive, avoiding the lethal hits and deflecting the shallow ones. She did not try to attack, aware that a mistake while attacking could end in her demise.

210 did not have the appearance of someone about to tire, but she did slip up enough for 248 to slash her across the ribs. The shock of pain did not deter her opponent, and (just as 248 had feared) her strike had left her open; she felt 210's knife cut into her shoulder as she tried to spin away, and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood in order to keep herself from crying out. 210 then kicked her legs out from under her, dropping her to the floor, and then fell on top of her, raising her knife in preparation to plunge it down—

A loud bang. Something red spattered 248's vision, and the weight of her opponent collapsed on top of her. She felt wetness spread throughout her shit, and looked down to see 210's head on her chest, a gaping hole in the back of it. She became aware of the shouts next, and saw that the guards were wrestling the woman, trying to subdue her while she kicked out at them. Madame B. was backing away, speaking calmly into the radio she carried with her, and within moments more guards piled into the room to subdue the woman.

248 did not think about rules. She shoved 210's body off of her, ran over to the fray, and stabbed one of the guards, overcome with an emotion that she had never felt before. The woman was shouting, the guards were shouting, and 248 started to shout too, unsure of what else she could do. They were starting to notice her now, too, so she plunged her knife into another, watching as blood bubbled through his black shirt, which housed skin and bone just like all the others.

Madame B. spoke an unfamiliar word, and the woman suddenly collapsed. With her no longer fighting, the guards turned their full attention to 248. Soon, the knife was wrestled out of her hand, and she was shoved to the ground next to the woman. She kept screaming, because suddenly the sound of her own voice was no longer hideous or frightening, but rather the only thing that she seemed to have left.

They carried both the woman and her away. 248 did not realize where she was going until she was thrown into the pit of the center of the room, at which point she lost the ability to speak. A man in white entered, and two of the guards held her down while he emptied a syringe into her arm.

The door closed behind the last guard, leaving 248 with nothing.

* * *

 **Russian Countryside, 2014**

Natasha didn't know what it was that woke her— a few raised hairs, maybe— but it was enough. In an instant she was crouched, low to the floor, glancing over at where Barnes held himself in a similar position. His eyes cut through the darkness to her, giving her a terse nod that let her know that he sensed the same thing she did. Sharon, who was lying on the bed, cracked one eye open and slowly raised one arm from behind her back to show that she was holding her handgun, loaded and ready to fire.

It was then that Natasha became aware of the smell. She reached behind her for her hood, pressing the cloth over her mouth and nose, watching as the Winter Soldier made an undignified dive for a blanket that was strewn on the floor. Sharon, also clad in a hoodie, mimicked Natasha's movement and noiselessly slid out of bed, moving over to where the door was. She pressed herself to the wall on the left of it, while Natasha did the same on the right. Barnes pulled a massive sniper rifle (Natasha was a little jealous) from under the bed and hid beneath the window.

 _Who is it?_ Sharon mouthed. Natasha jerked a shoulder in response— she had no idea.

Whoever it was, they obviously thought that the gas had been working for long enough. Natasha did the math in her head: judging by the strength of the smell, they'd used about three-quarters of the amount that would be needed to effectively wipe the three of them out. Sharon's eyes were slightly glazed over, but she was still alert enough to be aware of the danger. If their attackers believed that they had enough gas to get them, then that meant that they were severely underestimating the three of them.

Now _that_ was an advantage.

There was a moment, where the air seemed to still. Natasha sat back on her butt, sticking one leg in the air, waiting.

The door was hurled open, but not with enough force that Natasha was unable to kick it right back at their assailant. There was a crunch and a muffled yell— she'd gotten lucky and broken his nose. Then black-clad figures wielding semi-automatics started to crowd into the room, and she wiped all conscious thought out of her mind as she threw herself into the fray.

It wasn't all that unlike the fight on the causeway in DC, except this time Natasha's two allies were even more unlikely than Sam Wilson and Captain America. Granted, this time she didn't have to face the Winter Soldier; it was easier to land headshots in common thugs as opposed to one of the most legendary assassins in the world. There was also the added benefit that Barnes was practically a juggernaut once he really let go in a fight. The silver arm was used copiously as both a shield and offense, meaning he could pull off maneuvers that would almost certainly mean losing a normal arm.

Sharon delivered a spectacular kick to one of the men, sending him straight into Barnes' knife. "Nice one," he yelled, grinning savagely.

Natasha grimaced as she ran out of bullets again, throwing away the gun she was using and pulling out her own knife. In a brief flash of light from one of the guns, she caught a glimpse of the uniforms long enough to identify the symbol on their jackets.

"Hydra!" she bellowed, and then threw herself on top of two of them, preventing them from shooting both of her companions respectively.

She heard Barnes swear colorfully in a mix of English and Russian, and felt her own thoughts echoing the sentiment. The Hydra thugs were still pouring into the tiny cabin, which meant that (in spite of underestimating them), they'd still brought enough manpower to worry her. She grabbed a semiautomatic from one of the dead men and fired into three of the new goons, dropping them like stones.

Before she knew it, her back was pressed against something warm. Barnes was still mowing down the Hydra soldiers, his adrenaline on a high now that he'd found out it was the organization responsible for the hell he'd gone through. Natasha kicked one of their knees hard enough to break the cap, causing the guy to howl.

Behind her, she heard Sharon hiss, "Fuck," before the other woman collapsed.

Natasha snarled in frustration. "Barnes, we need to get the fuck out of here!"

Barnes didn't respond verbally, but the sight of his metal fist smashing its way through the window was answer enough. He cleared a path through the fray to Natasha and Sharon, grabbing Sharon while Natasha fended off the rest of them. Natasha took her weight briefly while Barnes climbed out the window, ignoring the yells from the soldiers that were probably warning their buddies who were still surrounding the cabin. She helped Sharon through the window next, shouting out when she felt a bullet graze her thigh. She fired the semi-automatic in the general direction that the shot had come from and was rewarded with a gurgle. Then she prayed that she calculated the angle correctly and back-flipped through the window, only grazing her arms on the glass shards that were left.

A quick glance revealed that Sharon was still conscious, using Barnes for support. Barnes pulled a grenade from his belt and flung it through the window, before the three of them carved a hole through the line surrounding the cabin and started hobbling their way through the field. Natasha could taste metal on her tongue, and realized that it was blood and that she'd bitten her cheek a bit too hard. She followed her instincts, which just shouted 'run' in her ear. She knew it was in her best interest to obey.

"They're gonna catch up to us," Barnes panted.

"Maybe if I play dead, they'll ignore me," Sharon suggested, her voice surprisingly even.

"Fuck that."

Sharon actually shot him a dirty look at that— probably offended at the implication that she couldn't take care of herself or something— but Natasha interjected before she could fire back.

"I agree, we need the split up," she said. She caught Barnes' eye. "You can keep yourself from getting shot in the face, right?"

"Great minds think alike, it would appear." Barnes smirked. "Do me a favor and don't come looking for me again, Black Widow."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He nodded at her tersely, the smile slipping from his face as he narrowed his focus to the Hydra agents who were in pursuit of him. "Good luck," he said. "Oh, and run."

Natasha looked down to see that he'd dropped another grenade nearby. "Fucking—"

She ran.

Natasha and Sharon made a wide circle back around to the village. There was an out-of-place van sitting at the curb on the main street, which they gave a wide berth. They didn't pause to catch their breath even once, in spite of the cut that was bleeding sluggishly on Natasha's thigh or the way that Sharon's old knee injury was clearly paining her. Natasha piled the other woman into the car that they'd used to get here, and within five minutes they were already several miles out from the small town. They'd been able to catch a glimpse of a cloud of smoke rising in the distance, but that, too, quickly receded.

Sharon passed out, her face pale. Natasha didn't know if it was because of the pain or a combination of exhaustion and the gas, but she hoped it was the latter. She resolved to stop and get fluids for the two of them as soon as it was safe enough for them to stop. This would probably mean another change in hair styles. Maybe color contacts this time.

Out of some strange impulse, she grabbed the burner phone that she'd sworn to herself she would throw away, and dialed a number.

It rang a few times, before a small click informed her that someone had picked up. "Hello?" came a groggy voice.

Natasha opened her mouth. _After this is all over, I'm coming back and I'm staying. After this is over, I'm not going to keep running away. After this is over, I won't leave again._

She said none of those things. Instead, Natasha pressed the 'end call' button, and briefly took her hands off the wheel to snap the phone in half. Then she rolled down the window and tossed the remains of it out, trying to ignore how her breathing threatened to increase its pace, and how her eyes threatened to blur.

She drove with the window open the rest of the way.

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

"Huh," said Bruce, staring at his phone. "Weird."

"What?"

"Nothing." He pocketed the device, but the rest of the day, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd missed something important.

* * *

 **Unknown place, unknown time**

"They cannot hurt you if you put them in a box," Madame B. would say.

248 could not hear. She could not see. She could not feel. She could not put anything in her box, because there was nothing to ignore. She tried groping around her, but there was no way for her to tell if she was moving or not. She did not know how long she had been there. Her thoughts were chasing one another in her head, at first, wondering what the guards and Madame B. had done to the woman.

"Emotion is something to be manipulated, but it is not necessary for your life."

Madame B.'s voice in her ear was not a help to her. While there were many occasions when her words of advice would allow 248 to focus, this did nothing to help her. She took a chance and tried to speak, but there was no response from her vocal cords— no tightening of muscles to indicate that she had spoken at all.

"The nightmares are in your mind. There is no physical hindrance."

248 felt the panic building. For the first time, she didn't know how to stop it.

"Get up." The woman's voice, not Madame B.'s.

248 would have screamed, if she could.


	11. Chapter 11: Can't Run Everywhere

**A/N:** All right, we're nearing the end of this tale - only two more chapters to go! Things are about to get serious, so hold onto your hats!

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Washington D.C., United States, 2012**

"Come in, dear, come in," said Peggy, waving her forward. She made a face at Sharon's formal wear. "Is it my funeral and no one told me?"

"I feel like I should probably tell you off for saying that," Sharon sighed. She replaced the flowers on the bedside table with pristine white tulips before she sat down. "But I know you'd just ignore it. I'm guessing you saw the news?"

Peggy snorted. "If by 'saw the news' you mean I spent an hour convincing the nice young nurse here that watching footage from the Battle of New York would not cause me to have a heart attack, then yes. I suppose we should all be grateful that there were that many skilled individuals willing to risk whatever anonymity they possessed to save our sorry arses."

"Fury visited you, didn't he," Sharon said. It was more of a statement than a question.

"That man," growled Peggy. "Driving me up the bloody wall."

It was no secret to Sharon that Aunt Peggy had a large amount of fondness for Director Fury, seeing as she was the one who had approved of his promotion. She tended to show that fondness by complaining about his infrequent visits to Sharon whenever she came around. She crossed her legs on her chair, glancing down at her conservative dress and grimacing.

"Date?" Peggy asked, waggling her eyebrows.

"I wish," sighed Sharon. "No, I'm going undercover. Senator might be involved in black market Chitauri weapon dealings. If I can confirm it, I get to jab a syringe into his neck and drag him back to the Triskelion."

"Do tell me about it," Peggy said. "I'm afraid I must live vicariously through you, at least while you have the time to visit. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been keeping you busy, I see."

"'Busy' might be an understatement," said Sharon. "I don't think any of us have had time to sleep since New York. We're coordinating with Stark Industries to get the cleanup underway; those of us who aren't dealing with that have to deal with the fact that Fury's almost had three aneurysms, trying to plan out what to do if something like this happens again. Even the junior agents have been taken off training for this."

"Well. It's always a dire day when the junior agents need to get involved."

Aunt Peggy's eyes became glassy at that, and she momentarily seemed to forget that Sharon was there. Sharon waited patiently, aware of the small ache in her chest. She always hated seeing her aunt here, when she had once been larger than life to her. She wished more of her family would visit, but for some reason her parents always found excuses not to. She reached out and grasped Peggy's hand briefly before getting up and tidying up the place a bit. She knew that the nurses would do the same for her later; this action was more for herself than anything else.

"Is it true?"

Sharon paused in the middle of organizing the little trinkets on the windowsill. When she looked at her aunt, Peggy had an unreadable look on her face.

"I haven't actually met him," she admitted. "But based on what I heard… yes. It's true."

Aunt Peggy's expression crumpled. Sharon turned and devoted an unusual amount of attention to straightening out the windowsill, allowing her aunt to have her moment of… grief? Happiness? She never pretended to understand what Peggy felt when it came to Steve Rogers. All the more reason for her to not mention that she was being assigned to keep an eye on him for the foreseeable future.

"Well," Aunt Peggy said at last. "I suppose I should be glad that he's getting a second chance."

 _He probably doesn't see it that way._

The thought was unbidden, but Sharon was willing to bet that the same idea was running through her aunt's mind. She fiddled with a small snow globe (it had been her gift to Aunt Peggy on her last birthday), looking out over the park that was across the street from the nursing home. Her hands shook briefly, but she swallowed and looked back at her Aunt, who was now giving her a look.

"Don't give me that, Sharon," she scolded. "I've lived my life."

"I know you have, you old bat," Sharon said, grinning when Peggy laughed. "I'm just… it's nothing, I'm being selfish. You don't want to hear it, trust me."

"All right," Aunt Peggy sighed. "As long as you're talking to someone about your troubles, dear. Did I ever tell you about my friend Angie? Bless her heart, my days in the SSR would have been far more difficult if it weren't for her…"

"I've met Angie, Aunt Peggy," Sharon reminded her gently. Granted, it had been a long time ago, but she'd met the woman all the same. As for having someone to talk to… well, Sharon had always been a bit of a loner. S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy was not the best place to make friends, and she wasn't the best at reaching out. She usually came off as too strong-willed to her peers, and they usually kept their distance from her.

Sharon had learned to hide that attribute of herself later on, but by then it was just a little bit late to be making friends. She got along with Agent May after training with her a couple of times, and always enjoyed carrying on a conversation with Agent Barton, but there were very few emotional rewards at S.H.I.E.L.D. In spite of all the stories that her Aunt had told her about working for the organization, Sharon had never thought it would be so… isolating. Socializing was no longer a priority for her. She still tried dating every so often, but she kept it firmly out of the workplace. God, that would end in disaster.

"Look, Aunt Peggy," she sighed, figuring that she should probably get her bad news out of the way. "I'm getting a new assignment soon. It's pretty extensive, and I won't be able to visit you for a long time." Peggy's eyes were fixed on hers, completely attentive. "I don't know how long. Indefinitely. All I know is it'll be a while. And I just wanted you to know— you used to tell me all those stories about Captain America and being a spy when I was little, and you would always call him a hero—"

"Because he was— is, darling," Peggy reminded her.

"That's not the point," Sharon said, a little more sharply than she intended. "The point is that Captain America is not and has never been my hero. You are."

Aunt Peggy didn't seem to have a response to that. Sharon wished that what she was saying sounded less like a goodbye. _It doesn't have to be, Carter. Get that thought out of your head._

"'I know my value; anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter'," Sharon quoted. "Words I try to live by. Yeah, it used to get me in trouble, but… I never doubted myself, and it's because of you."

Sharon held her aunt's hand for the next ten minutes, and pretended that neither of them were crying.

* * *

 **Russian Countryside, 2014**

"You need to beat Yelena at her own game," Sharon said.

Natasha turned her head to stare at Sharon. They had only been able to get a room with one bed, and so were sharing it. Sleep seemed to be a problem for the both of them, however, albeit for different reasons. Natasha didn't feel tired, and Sharon… well, judging by the scrunched look on Sharon's face, the pain in her knee was acting up once more. Natasha could hardly blame her for wanting a distraction.

"Make her come to me?" she asked, seeing where Sharon's idea was going. "Maybe. The question is whether or not she would be fooled by it. So far, she's the one who's been laying the traps without us even realizing it. In one move she managed to turn the entirety of the C.I.A. against me. What ploy would we be able to use to fool her into coming to us?"

"Glad to see you're speaking in plural instead of singular," Sharon noted dryly. "There's something about you that grates against her personally. Plus there's the fact that she'll probably come to kill you again anyway. We just need to make sure that when that happens, it's somewhere that we dictate, on our own terms."

"Keep in mind that we'd still have to find out where she's coming from," Natasha pointed out. "And in order to do that, we have to give her a reason to go back in the first place. So… what? Injure her enough that she drags herself back? And then, what? How do we track her without realizing? She's a genius, Sharon. If she went through the same process I did, then… well, it would've been hell, and she would've come out the other side with one of the sharpest minds in the world."

Sharon smiled. "Yeah, I know you're not exaggerating. But it _does_ sound a bit like you're bragging."

Natasha chuckled.

"If she's like you, why hasn't she turned on the Red Room yet?"

"Well, ultimately I was a failure," Natasha admitted. "So they probably changed the process for her."

"I'm not so sure."

Sharon was staring up at the ceiling, unblinking. She'd folded her arms across her chest, a clear indication that she was uncertain of what she was about to put forth. Natasha deliberately kept her posture open and relaxed, encouraging her friend to go ahead.

"I didn't notice until you… your flashback was triggered back at Barnes' cabin." Sharon twisted her hands in the sheets. "When she had me trapped in the pit back in Moscow, she… I said something that made her almost exactly the same way. Up until then she was perfect— composed, I mean. But then she started mixing Russian into her speech and she just sounded angry and kind of insane. I think that something's wrong with her, but she doesn't realize that something's wrong with her."

 _She doesn't realize that something's wrong with her._

Well. Natasha hadn't realized that for almost ten years, so… maybe it wasn't so surprising that the same thing happened with Yelena. She thought about the brittle expressions Yelena used, like any of them might shatter from being used too much. It was disturbing to see that on someone besides herself; it reminded her of her mercenary days, when it felt like the world was falling apart around her.

Sharon laughed without mirth. "Look, after what happened with S.H.I.E.L.D.? I swore to myself that I wouldn't manipulate anyone again. That I was done with that part of being a spy. I made that pretty clear to my boss at the C.I.A. too— and I was lucky enough that he agreed. But I'm— I'm thinking I might break that vow."

"What did you have in mind?"

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

" _Natasha Romanoff, alias 'Black Widow', has reportedly turned herself in to authorities at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. The Russian government is holding her temporarily while the U.S. arranges for her to be transported back to American soil to stand trial for her crimes in Paris last week. Rumors abound that she is connected to the explosion at a museum in Moscow, though most intelligent experts claim that that was purely accidental."_

It wasn't that far-fetched to say that Stark Tower was in chaos.

Steve watched, feeling detached from the situation, as Tony argued with yet another politician on the phone; he'd already made separate calls to Miss Potts and Stark Industries lawyers, preparing for Natasha's return to D.C. and hoping that they could get her out of C.I.A. custody before her trial. Bruce had shut himself away in his lab as soon as he heard the news. For the first time since Steve had met him, he'd looked like he wanted to punch something. Clint was still watching the news, a small frown on his face. Thor, as soon as he'd heard, had gone back to Asgard to ask Heimdall for a possible update on Natasha.

"No, no I don't care if your voters see you as a pansy for 'not upholding justice'— the fact remains that she's innocent of these crimes. Yes, Captain America is backing me up on that. Oh, well if _his_ patriotism isn't enough for you then I guess we're all screwed, aren't we? We don't fall under the jurisdiction of the United States government; get that through your skull before you call me again."

"Having fun?" Steve asked, after Tony hung up. Tony flipped him off.

Steve was due for a press conference in a few hours, when he'd give the Avengers' official statement regarding Natasha's capture. He was mostly outraged by the C.I.A.'s efforts to keep her in their custody, but he couldn't help but be faintly annoyed by Natasha's refusal to just ask them for help, or at least keep them in the loop. Even if she had been calling Bruce, that wasn't enough to keep her safe from the entirety of the United States government. Steve was aware that she probably had a good reason, but rational thought did little to stop the irrational.

The elevator doors slip open to reveal a harassed-looking Pepper Potts, who immediately kicked off her shoes and slid onto a stool at the bar.

"Hi honey," Tony said, moving into her space long enough to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Thought you were staying at the office?"

"So did I," Pepper sighed. "But someone anonymous called Karen and recommended that I step out for a little while. It was enough to terrify her into convincing me that she could handle it. She's a lifesaver."

"You're welcome," said Clint.

Pepper rotated in her seat to stare at him. "Seriously?"

"What? You and Stark haven't seen each other in, like, a week. Figured you two could use a break."

She gave him a mock-serious look. "I didn't know you were so invested in our relationship status, Clint."

Clint snickered. Steve stared at him and wondered if he and Natasha were conspiring to set everyone else on the team up. Oh god, did that mean that Clint was the one planning blind dates for him now? He wasn't sure if that would be better or worse than Natasha playing matchmaker… which led his thoughts back to her, which led him back to his slightly fouler mood.

"I'm actually just covering all our bases," Clint offered, more genuine this time. "Something's going down. I figured we'd all sleep better if we keep as many of the team safe as possible."

 _Since we can't keep one of us safe,_ Steve thought.

The news was now showing blurred footage of a woman being led into the Russians' secure facility. Steve couldn't be sure it was Natasha— the distinctive red hair was absent— but she looked to be about the right size and build. She also was not putting up a fight, which didn't surprise him. The only way Natasha could've been caught was if she'd given herself up willingly.

The question was: why?

The elevator opened again, this time with Bruce stepping out. He looked exhausted, even though it had only been a few hours since the news had broken. He ended up on the couch next to Clint, his eyes glazing over as he stared at the TV. Steve debated on sending him to sleep, suspecting that the scientist had been suffering from a lack of it lately, but if Bruce had come back up here then it meant he didn't want to be alone— which was better than him shutting himself in his lab all day.

"Any idea what her plan is, Clint?" Steve asked.

Clint squinted at the screen, as though it would give him all the answers. "Nope," he answered. "But we'd all be idiots to assume that she doesn't have one. Here's something to chew on, if you guys haven't thought about it yet: Sharon Carter hasn't shown up."

Steve was slightly confused about why that was significant, but Bruce perked up. "Right," he said. "One of the times Natasha called me, she was asking for advice on how to patch up Carter. If they aren't mentioning Agent Carter in the news, then either they want to keep her capture quiet because she was employed by the C.I.A., or…"

"Or they haven't caught her," Steve finished. Well, that was something.

"Conclusion," began Tony. "Miss Romanoff is clearly up to something, as Legolas here pointed out. What is she doing? Is she trying to signal to us that she needs our help?"

"If that was true, why didn't she just call me?" Bruce asked.

"Because she's, y'know, cryptic-spy-type. Secret signals and handshakes are probably her native language."

"Her native language is Russian," Clint pointed out. "And she isn't signaling us. Nat's not stupid; if she's on the run, she makes sure to die her hair different colors. Or at least, she does now. If her hair was red in that footage, then I'd say she was trying to contact us. Since it's not, I think it's safe to assume she still wants us out of it."

"I don't think acquiescing to that particular demand is in our— or her— best interests," Tony said. "This is getting out of hand."

"As much as I respect Natasha, I have to agree," admitted Pepper, making them all stare in surprise. She rolled her eyes. "Look, I hate to be that person, but this isn't doing the Avengers' public image any favors. Having one of your teammate's names repeatedly brought up in the news as someone who's trustworthiness is in question? Not good for any of you. I've had the press hounding us more than ever, and our lawyers aren't happy with our prospects."

"I think that the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. shook her more than any of us thought," Bruce added more quietly. "She hasn't spoken about it with me, but there's always something there when she calls me."

Steve thought about that— remembered the conversation she had with him at Sam's. It was the one time that she seemed to be shaken by what happened. She'd been questioning her entire purpose, her existence, in that conversation, and he knew that the Hydra reveal, coupled with the realization that Fury didn't trust her as much as she trusted him, left her unsure of herself and with the desire to go remake herself again. He didn't realize it at the time, but he now realized that it might not have been completely healthy.

Still, Natasha had done some things that would suggest the contrary. She kept in contact with Bruce. She made an ally in Sharon Carter, so evidently she knew that going it alone wasn't the best idea. She had turned herself in, and probably had a plan in mind.

"It's Cap's call," Clint reminded them.

Feeling their eyes on them, Steve looked up and took in all their expressions. Tony looked angry, Pepper and Bruce looked worried, and Clint had an unreadable expression.

"We'll wait a little longer," he said, his voice slipping into something more authoritative. "In the meantime, I think that the best thing we can do is what the rest of this country seems determined not to do— trust our teammate."

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

Sharon re-crossed her legs for the third time since she sat down, watching idly as passerby wandered the avenue. The bench was stone, and uncomfortable, and friendly faces were not in abundance there. Not that Sharon particularly felt like being amicable; even though it had been her idea for Natasha to turn herself in, she still wasn't happy about it. They could stall for time at the moment— the Russian government wouldn't be happy to give up such a valuable prisoner— but neither did they want to hold someone so dangerous. The Black Widow's reputation was not exactly unknown here.

This was the part that Sharon was nervous about. If anyone approached her, it would instantly become apparent that she didn't belong. Natasha had coached her on some basic Russian before they put their plan into motion, but not enough to hold up under more extensive questioning.

 _Should've let me be the one to get captured, Romanoff._ Which was a stupid thought— they needed a spectacle, and they wouldn't get one from Sharon's capture.

She checked her watch again. 10:45; just fifteen more minutes.

Sharon stood up and started heading towards the building she'd watched Natasha be brought to. They were counting on the Russians not wanting to move her anywhere due to security risks. People dressed in business wear were entering and exiting the building, but Sharon knew enough to recognize several places where guns were hidden on their person. Media trucks were vying for access along the avenue, but most were being turned away by policemen.

Sharon had had to wait for twelve hours before she was able to actually scout out the building. Twelve tedious hours without even Angry Birds to keep her company.

 _I hate my ideas sometimes._

Two policemen were arguing with a reporter carrying a small notepad and a video camera— an amateur reporter, most likely. He was speaking in English, which only seemed to frustrate the policemen more. To the point that they barely noticed the young woman who flashed her I.D. at them, nodding at her to go past. Sharon very carefully did not stare at the woman, and placed her hand in her cell phone pocket and pressed a button. She then strode a block south and found a dumpster, chucked the phone inside, and then doubled back.

She grinned slightly when she saw that the perimeter was in chaos.

Policemen were staring at their phones in confusion or arguing with one another. The workers who had been going in and out of the building had removed their firearms from their hiding places and were yelling at all those in the vicinity to kneel and place their hands behind their heads. Civilians surrounding Sharon did as they were told, confusion and fear on their faces. Sharon mimicked their move.

* * *

 **Every Television in America**

*static*

"Morning, Yelena."

"…"

"Nothing to say? Going to just kill me?"

"I'm just considering that it may have been a good idea to leave you to the American dogs. You have been very foolish, being captured by them."

"Yes, well. You're pointing a gun at my head, so you must be worried about me going back to U.S. soil. Security too much for you there? Or was it the Avengers?"

"…"

"That's what I figured." Laughter. "You didn't want to get too close to a group of people who can hunt you down and tear you apart if they want to. But I couldn't let you bait them into coming after you, either. I'll never be able to find out where the Red Room is if you do."

"Hmm. Dead people generally do not find the Red Room."

"I know that. But you can."

"This is true. Relevant, however? I think not."

"Thinking about what they've done to your mind doesn't make you angry? Think about it, Yelena. You're the Black Widow. We're not people who get to keep our own minds. We don't keep our bodies. We don't keep our souls. They _own_ us, every inch of us, and their destruction is written on our bodies, in our minds. That doesn't piss you off? That doesn't make you want to rip every one of their heads off?"

"I only know love for my mother."

"Who's really saying that phrase?"

"You think you _know?_ You know nothing!"

"What do you think your life amounts to? Death? That's what we are."

Russian cursing.

"It's what I did. I decided to leave the Red Room. I _burned_ it to the ground." Pause. "I left you in the process."

"Fuck you!"

"Yelena, I'm sorr—"

Bang.

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

Not even Tony Stark was able to say a word as the Avengers watched the body of their colleague and friend, Natasha Romanoff, slump in her chair. There was no other sound from the feed other than the footsteps of Yelena fleeing.

* * *

 **Beijing, China, 2014**

"Shit," muttered Bucky Barnes.

* * *

 **Washington D.C., United States, 2013**

"I'm not connecting with him," Sharon repeated again firmly.

Fury sighed. "Look, Carter, I know of your opinion on the matter—"

"It isn't changing."

"— and I still think it would be better if he had someone to connect to."

Sharon resisted the urge to massage her temples. This was the fifth time this week that they'd been over this, and she had yet to figure out a way to convince Fury that (on top of it being stupid) it was the wrong action to take. It was risky enough that they were having this talk face-to-face rather than on a secure channel. Sure, Rogers was on a mission somewhere near India, but that didn't mean he couldn't stumble across some security footage. Somehow.

(Okay, maybe she was grasping at straws.)

"Yes, but not me," she emphasized. "All due respect sir, but I know my limits. I know my weaknesses. And I'm not comfortable with this. He's a nice guy, from what I've seen. But I think, for the moment, he prefers the solitude. Plus I thought him and Romanoff were friends? Sort of?"

The same old arguments that she'd been spewing at him. She wondered if he would come up with any new counterarguments this time.

"I know you're capable of it, Carter," Fury said quietly. "All you have to do is act like you're not on a mission. Shouldn't be too hard to do. You've been complaining about how your vacation's too long for a while now. Maybe it'll help with the… 'isolation' that your therapist keeps talking about."

Well. That was what she got for messaging Maria with all her problems.

"Whatever my therapist might say, we both know my 'isolation' has never been a problem." Sharon stood. "This isn't up for discussion, sir. If you think I'm going to disrespect my aunt this way, then you really don't know your employees well enough."

"I never know my employees well enough."

Now it was Sharon's turn to sigh. She'd been about to leave the office, but this seemed like something that she couldn't let go. She turned around and folded her arms across her chest.

"Let's talk about this hypothetically, then," she said. "Say that I bump into Rogers in the hallway. I apologize, or he does, whatever. I ask him if he wants to get a cup of coffee with me. If, by some miracle, he says yes, then we go get coffee. I complain about my work as a nurse, and about a boy who almost threw up on me the other day. He laughs and mentions his coworkers— nothing too explicit, obviously, because he works for S.H.I.E.L.D. If it goes well, we agree to have dinner together at some point.

"Now let's say we actually develop a healthy, happy, stable relationship. Considering he's Captain America, he's going to devote plenty of time to it. Me? I'm going to as well, because I can honestly say that I want that kind of relationship. I do. I'll love it while it's going on. And then one day, shit will hit the fan, he'll find out who I really am, and break it off and leave us both feeling like crap. Do you really think that that will be good for him, in the end?"

"You've thought this through," Fury said, his expression unreadable.

"Someone had to." _Because you clearly didn't._

"And you?"

Sharon shrugged. "Life will go on. Failed relationships don't set off the apocalypse. Probably."

"To be honest, I never thought you would agree. I wanted your opinion on how Rogers would respond to that sort of thing."

Sharon really did leave the office this time, but not before saying, "Then next time just _ask_ me, Director Fury."

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

 _I'm ready,_ Sharon thought. _I have to be._


	12. Chapter 12: We Who Make Ourselves

**A/N:** Alright - the penultimate chapter. We just have the epilogue after this, and then that's the end of this story. I'm not going to say anything else, except that I hope you guys like it!

* * *

 **Unknown location, unknown time**

248 had nightmares.

They were dreams of seeing nothing, hearing nothing, _being_ nothing. She awoke from them with the feeling of something choking her, only to find herself alone in her room. It would normally take time to push her pulse back down to a normal speed, and more time after that to coax herself back to sleep. If she did not sleep, her performance became poor, and if her performance became poor there were only more threats to take her back to that room.

The darkness of her cell was closing in on her, and she normally had to tap herself on the wrist and breathe loudly to remind herself that she was not back in that room. She did not know if the other girls had ever had to go to the room; they were adept at hiding their emotions, like she herself now was. Every day went by just like the last, with the girls beginning their combat training after the first meal, then information sessions, and then another meal before bed. More girls were dying, she knew. Their numbers had dwindled to around 20.

The woman had been in combat training once. She had not participated. She had not even looked at 248.

Dinner was the same as it always was: a bland but filling meal, supplemented with greens and a glass of milk. They were never deprived of food. 248 sat at a table alone, as most of the remaining girls had. Any 'friendships' that might have been formed had been lost as the girls still alive had killed the others, or they had been taken away and not seen again. 248 was not bothered by this. Apart from occasional paralyzing fear while she slept, she was not bothered by much of anything anymore.

Madame B. was standing at the head table, watching them. 248 did not look at her.

Nothing had ever happened during dinner. Not in all the years that 248 had been in existence. Today, however, the lights flickered.

She paused, her fork stopping in front of her face, before she continued eating. Through her peripherals, she noticed the other girls do the same, taking barely a second to assess the situation. Madame B., however, left the room without so much as a warning, her face looking tighter than it had been a moment before. 248, unsure of what the proper action to be taken was, continued to eat.

A guard came in a moment later and instructed them to return to their rooms immediately.

"No fighting on the way back," he snapped. 248 and the other girls stood, filing out into the hallway. It was unusual for them to be told _not_ to fight one another. In her nightly talks with Madame B., 248 was actively encouraged to hunt down and eliminate other girls in order to ensure her survival. 248 had reasoned that it was smarter to allow the girls to come to her, to allow them to continue to believe that she was helpless. It made it easier to eliminate them when the time came.

The girl walking in front of her was 232. It would be easy to wrap her ankle around the other girl's, causing her to tumble sideways. After that, it was only a matter of getting her knee in her throat and applying enough pressure. 248 did not do this because she was told not to do this, but all the same— the thought crossed her mind.

The guard left them to walk back on their own at some point. They kept walking in silence until one girl broke it.

Obviously 205 had been having the same thoughts that 248 had, because she pounced on 213 only a few moments after the guard left. Two other girls near them grabbed her by the arms and pulled her off where before they might have let her kill the girl. Neither of them said anything to 205, but their expressions were pinched enough to make their feelings on the matter clear.

That short moment had halted the line long enough that they hadn't even started moving again when there was a rumble, and the lights went out completely.

* * *

 **Moscow, Russia, 2014**

Sharon did not want to be arguing with several CIA operatives in a cramped space while Russian operatives with constipated expressions stood on the edges of the room. She did not want to have to keep explaining how yes, Natasha Romanoff was innocent of the deaths of their fellow CIA agents in Paris, the blond woman was the culprit and she would probably do it again if they didn't catch up with her soon. She did not need to be dealing with the egos of middle-aged men who couldn't see past the bridge of their nose. She did not need to be trying not to slam her forehead against the wall.

What she _needed_ to be doing was track down Yelena before the trail went cold. She needed to be following her to the Red Room. She needed to be saving those girls. Apparently saving girls from a life of abuse and horrific experimentation didn't really matter in the face of one of the CIA's most famous prisoners getting murdered and then turning out to be innocent of her 'crimes' in the first place.

"Forgive me for being skeptical, Agent Carter," said Nicholson. "You ran off with Romanoff in Paris to chase after ghosts. The Red Room program was a ghost of the KGB, something that even they laughed off as a rumor. Maybe Romanoff came from there, but it's impossible that it exists today."

Sharon planted her hands on her hands, not bothering to keep her voice level. "Really? You're saying this only _months_ after Hydra— which was last seen in the forties, thank you very much— crawled out of S.H.I.E.L.D. like a worm crawling out of an apple? After I joined the C.I.A. I at least thought my coworkers would be intelligent."

Sharon watched as Kunia, one of the younger agents, stepped forward with a hand raised as if to placate her. "Agent Carter, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation—"

"The situation," she interrupted, looking at the man in charge of the escort that was meant to take Natasha back to the U.S., "is that Natasha Romanoff gave up her life to give me— us— an opportunity to save who-knows-how-many girls from becoming like her. She hasn't given me details, but odds are that they've been tortured, beaten, and psychologically conditioned. Our chance to get them out of that life is rapidly disappearing the longer you argue with me about this. I know I don't have a lot of pull with the C.I.A., especially since I used to be S.H.I.E.L.D., but I swear that once this is all over you can fire me or arrest me or whatever. Just trust me on this one thing."

Eric Guerrera pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. He was a man in his fifties, and seemed like the most reasonable one of the group. Lucky for Sharon that he was the leader.

"I spoke with Wilson, your supervisor," he said. "He told me that as an agent, you were pretty damn reliable, Carter— both in S.H.I.E.L.D. and out. I'm not sure that I can swallow this story about an underground organization training young girls to be killers, but with everything else that's happened in the past few years I also can't say that it's not a possibility. But the red tape might mean delays."

Sharon swallowed a scream. How had Natasha gotten the C.I.A. to help her so quickly in Paris?

Seized by a sudden recklessness, she drew her gun. The result was what she expected — the other agents shouted in alarm and pulled their weapons on her, but she refused to back down. To his credit, Guerrera didn't back down either, staring straight into the face of her gun.

"Help me _now_ ," she said. "Or you'll be eating a bullet."

"You just committed a federal offense," he replied. "Those girls are worth that much to you?"

"Yes," Sharon answered. "I don't have to justify myself to you. I don't have any intention of doing that. But I can't do this by myself, and I don't intend to do it alone. I need resources so that these girls can be gotten out of whatever facility they're being kept in safely, and I need resources to fight whatever muscle they have waiting for us in there. Help me. You can officially say that you were coerced."

Guerrera held her gaze for another moment. Something— whether it was her words, or her expression, or maybe he was able to see her desperation— must have convinced him, because he said, "Fine."

Sharon lowered her gun. So did the others. They were looking at her with wide eyes, like they were waiting for her to snap and shoot them all. She wouldn't be doing that, because she wasn't the one who had been brainwashed to kill from childhood, unlike the girls in the Red Room.

Guerrera started ordering them to move, then gave her a look. Sharon took his cue and began asking for numerous things: weapons, equipment that she knew the CIA had access to. Everything turned into a whirlwind of preparations as five agents planned on taking a truck out to wherever Yelena was headed. Sharon herself fetched an extra handgun, attaching it at her hip and leaving the other holstered at her lower back.

"Just how do you plan on finding this Yelena woman?" asked Guerrera.

"You just let me worry about that," replied Sharon grimly.

It took another two hours before preparations were complete, but soon she was giving instructions to the driver, occasionally checking her cell phone before she would say, "Exit here", and "Turn here". It was going to be a long trip, as the group ended up heading into Estonia, and even a truck with five CIA agents wasn't really a great place to be. It was obvious that the team was uncomfortable with her presence, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Her phone buzzed again, revealing the next instruction; night was falling before the message finally read, _FINAL DESTINATION: TURN LEFT NEXT INTERSECTION (death doesn't take no for an answer, ha)_.

Sharon rolled her eyes.

Night was falling by the time they pulled up (which was almost too perfect, really). Sharon took one other agent with her (Collins, her name was) in order to scout out… whatever it was they were looking for. It appeared to be an abandoned research facility, with ivy creeping up the walls and an overgrown tree in the courtyard. It seemed harmless enough, but Sharon had no doubt that this was the place.

"They must have a secret entrance somewhere else," muttered Collins.

"Probably," agreed Sharon.

Another argument ensued when they got back: did they just collapse the facility? Did they enter through the abandoned building and see if they could find some way in? How did they get in without alerting everyone inside? How did they figure out where all the girls were? How did they avoid the mercenaries that were in the Red Room's employ? All of these questions were ones that Sharon would have to improvise on; she and Natasha hadn't really discussed this part of the plan.

"There were active cameras attached to the main building," Collins pointed out. "Carter and I stayed out of their sights. Hopefully they won't know we're coming."

Sharon's phone buzzed again. _RED ROVER, RED ROVER, LET CARTER COME OVER._

Boom.

The team fell silent, staring at one another. Then Sharon stood.

"Well," she said. "I guess that that's our cue."

* * *

 **Red Room Headquarters, Estonia, 2014**

Twenty mercs. All with weapons pointed at her. In the middle of them all stood a severe-looking woman who stared at her with something like intrigue in her eyes. Yelena was behind them, arms folded behind her back, an unreadable expression on her face. The men looked slightly nervous. The older woman was the only one who looked moderately calm.

Step one: get her talking.

"Hi," said Natasha. "I guess they won't be having an open coffin funeral for me."

The woman smiled. "It's wonderful to see you again, Natalia. Yelena had assured me that you were dead, but I cannot say that this isn't an unpleasant surprise. I have missed you."

"Hmm. Can't miss what you never had."

She noticed that Yelena straightened up a bit, a flash of surprise appearing on her face. Natasha was very careful not to look at her. She took down some notes on the woman in her head— namely that she obviously knew Natasha, even though Natasha didn't know her. She was very clearly the person in charge of this entire project (though she had to be getting her funding from somewhere— Natasha would look into that later). She had Yelena, the second Black Widow, completely under her thumb. Where before whenever she encountered Yelena she would be defiant and sarcastic, she was now keeping silent and professional. It was impressive.

This place nearly brought her blood to a boil just by being here. It was a stark reminder of what she remembered of her own upbringing, involving the death of other girls around her and how she strived to be _better_ , and to always show this through ruthless killing of her peers. She wondered if it was the same for Yelena, and why Yelena hadn't escaped yet.

The woman paused, looking thoughtful. "You do not remember me?" She switched to Russian. "When Yelena told us what happened, I assumed that you had regained the memories of us that we were forced to take away from you. You certainly made it sound like it."

"So I was right," Natasha answered, sticking with English. "Something happened between Yelena and I, and shortly after you wiped my memories I destroyed the Red Room and escaped. You must've gotten out along with her, and used her to… what? Strike fear into the hearts of potential sponsors so that you could start your sick project all over again? Russia doesn't have as much power as it used to."

The woman smiled, obviously deciding to play along. "We're not building the subjects up for Russia, Natalia." Natasha wanted to vomit. They weren't even girls anymore? They were goddamn _subjects?_ "It is true that we forced numerous men to sponsor us, along with a few enthusiastic donors, but that was hardly the point. We're building them for you."

It was like ice had flooded all of her bones. She noticed that some of the guards had moved to block her exits, but she found that she couldn't bring herself to care, her attention focused on the woman in front of her. The mere thought that fifty girls had been tortured and abused and had _died_ because of _her_ —

Not even a thousand years of wiping out her ledger would be able to erase this.

"Look at yourself, Natalia," the woman said. "Look at what you've done. You might have gone astray when you were fighting for S.H.I. .; I thought we raised you better than to fall victim to Hydra. But now you are one of the Avengers, a machine meant for killing in defense of the entire world. And who would fault you for that? Aliens were pouring from the sky, after all."

She managed to keep her voice steady. "So… I save the world, and you engineer more women as killers? I don't really see the connection here."

"We are making killers," admitted the woman softly. "But we are also making heroes. Hypothetically, once the process was complete— the weak weeded out, the strong made stronger, passing every test we set for them, beyond compassion, perfect at following orders— we would have gifted them to you. They would have been yours to do with as you please, yours to command. Your own army, to keep the world safe. The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. has only strengthened this belief that this is what is needed."

"Wow." Natasha had never had this much trouble keeping herself from screaming before. Her tone, however, showed no sign of her internal struggle. "That's… actually the most fucked up thing I've ever heard. And where does Yelena even fit into this? She's like me. She knows me. I don't remember her. She doesn't really seem to be a part of your master plan."

"Belova is irrelevant." The woman paused. "I care about her, truly I do. She has been the most integral part of our plan for these girls. She is the one who has kept all word about them from making it into the world at large. She silenced naysayers and supporters alike— anyone who could get the word out. Unfortunately, you found out too early, and so we sent her to eliminate you as well."

"So the 'army' isn't really for me," concluded Natasha. "It's for the Avengers."

The woman smiled again. For the first time, Natasha was able to see the faintest gleam of something feverish and terrifying there— something that she had seen briefly when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, in Pierce. The wild, desperate conviction that she was doing the right thing, even though she clearly wasn't. Natasha felt that last piece slide into place in her mind, solidifying her determination and her plan on how to deal with this last, unknown factor.

"Like I said," the woman answered. "Heroes are what the world needs."

"And there it is," said Natasha. "Your failure to understand that a hero doesn't need to come from a blood-stained background."

 _Keep talking._ She had to keep this woman's attention on her, at least until Sharon and the C.I.A. agents could get the girls to safety. That was if the girls cooperated, anyway… hopefully they weren't far enough in their training that they recognized people from an American intelligence agency and took steps accordingly. She focused her gaze on Yelena for a moment— the other woman was staring at her, hands flexing like she wanted to shoot her and actually finish the job this time.

"So," she said, going off yet another hunch. "When are you going to tell Yelena that you took away her memories, too?"

She was satisfied when Yelena jerked. The woman, on the other hand, had no response.

"Everyone here cares for Yelena a great deal," she said. "We would never remove her memories. We even allowed her to watch when we took yours."

"The Red Room is built on lies," Natasha countered. _I know because my life has been made of them._ "Did you really think I wouldn't figure it out? You gained her trust by letting her watch while you took my memories, but I'm willing to be that you had to correct a few things. It's hard to let your assets into the outside world without them getting attached to something while they're gone. How many times have you had to take away a friend from her? Or a lover? Or a little park in some city that she really likes, because she isn't allowed to like anything?"

"Ridiculous," the woman scoffed, her voice more frigid.

"You ever noticed that?" Natasha was now addressing Yelena directly. "How you never really have anything of your own? If you haven't already, you will one day. You'll start to wonder why you don't get any joy out of your life, even though they tell you it's for the good of your mother or whatever the fuck they've been feeding you."

Yelena did not respond, but her eyes never once left Natasha's.

"In the end the Red Room's mark will always be on you," Natasha said, her voice rising. She noticed that the grip that the men had on their rifles tightened. "You can never wipe it out, or wash it off. They will always have some kind of hold on you, and you can never escape it. You saw it, when you triggered me back in Moscow. You know that what I'm saying is the truth. You know that you will never be your own person, just a vessel for the wishes of demons like her, and the worst part is that it doesn't make you angry. Why doesn't it make you angry, Yelena?"

Yelena responded by abruptly shoving past the woman, who raised a hand to halt the thugs who moved to stop her. She drew a knife, instead of a gun, which told Natasha that (though she was doing a good job of hiding it) she was emotionally compromised. She wanted this to be personal, not quick. Sort of similar to her need to make Sharon hurt before she killed her. Similar to her riling Natasha up years ago, during her mission in Michigan.

Yelena craved personal satisfaction, and that was something that she normally hid from the Red Room. Not now, though.

Natasha didn't move. Didn't raise a hand to defend herself. She felt the constant burn from when Yelena had shot her, and knew that if Yelena made the same decision this time, she wouldn't be so lucky.

"Going to tell me that I know nothing, again?" asked Natasha quietly.

Yelena didn't answer. She grabbed a fistful of Natasha's hair, yanking her head back and bringing the blade of her knife to her exposed throat. Natasha still didn't flinch. She didn't know how much time Sharon would need, but if her death bought more, then so be it. She was playing this one by ear. For once, she didn't regret that.

"No last words, Natalia?" It was the first time Yelena had spoken, and her voice was a croak, like she'd been screaming.

In Russian, Natasha answered, "I can die in peace, if you choose to live for yourself."

* * *

 **Red Room Headquarters, Estonia, 2014**

248 was the first to move, when both voices and lights appeared in the distance.

The other girls crouched against the wall, unsure of what to do. She scooted forward, trying to see who was coming— the guards? Were they coming to fetch them? They could have gone to their rooms themselves, but the loss of electricity was something that had never happened before. The girls were not sure of what to do, except to say nothing, and to sit motionless and in silence. None of them had decided to kill each other, either.

The voices were coming from around a corner. 248 peered around it, and ended up half-blinded by the flashlight.

"Oh, crap."

American accent? That was strange. Americans were not usually here. The guards spoke in Russian. 248 blinked once, twice and then a third time, and the face of a blond woman appeared. She looked nothing like _the_ woman (where was she?), but she identified the gun in her hand easily enough. This woman was dangerous. Maybe not as dangerous, but dangerous all the same.

"Hey," the woman said, crouching down. 248 considered killing her— she was in a position of vulnerability— but what if this was a test? Madame B. would be upset if she killed someone she was not supposed to.

"Can you speak English?" she asked. 248, reluctant to break the taboo, nodded. "Okay. Are there others with you? Do you know where they are?"

248 looked at the line of girls crouched against the wall, several of whom had raised their heads in curiosity. The woman moved past her and around the corner, swearing quietly in English when she saw them all lined up there. She was tensed, like she half-expected them to attack (smart of her), but she still crouched down to get the rest of them in view.

"Okay," she said. "My name is Sharon Carter. I'm… I'm someone who isn't going to hurt you." 248 stared at her, along with the others. Hurt her? They were never hurt. Just being made stronger. That was what Madame B. always said.

"Listen, something bad is going to happen here soon," she continued. "We're going to get you all out of here before it does, okay? I just need you to—"

Soundlessly, 205 leapt at her, tackling her to the ground. The woman— Sharon— hissed in surprised, but very quickly wrestled 205 down. When 205 continued to struggle, albeit weakly, she eventually grimaced and hit her with the gun in her hand. 205 went limp.

There were others with Sharon. They stared at 205 with horrified looks on their faces.

"You expect us to _save_ them?" asked one.

"Fuck you," said Sharon, suddenly vicious. Now 248 was reminded of the woman. "They're coming with us. _All_ of them. Can you girls stand up?"

There was no movement at first. Then, slowly, 213 got to her feet, a frown on her face, but she nodded. Other girls slowly followed suit, all looking confused. 248 watched them do so, wondering where the woman was. Was she alright? Would she be okay if this bad thing happened? She wondered if she would get in trouble if she looked for her.

She slipped back into the shadows as the other girls wordlessly followed the men (and two women) back the way that the group of adults had come. 248, meanwhile, started back the way she'd come, hurrying through the darkness without making a sound. Would the woman be in the cafeteria? Would she be trying to stop the bad thing from happening? Was she already gone? What would happen to her?

 _Concern for others is a weakness._ Madame B.'s voice. For a moment, it was so loud in her head that she wanted to scream. 248 grimaced, but she shoved it in a box, and continued on.

She did not notice that Sharon Carter was following her.

* * *

 **Red Room Headquarters, Estonia, 2014**

Yelena did not move for at least three minutes and counting after Natasha's statement. Natasha kept herself still as a statue.

Without warning, the lights from the facility's main generator blared back into existence. Alarms started blaring as well, as the system detected intruders. Natasha was mildly impressed; the place was advanced enough to use facial recognition?

Several of the mercenaries hurried out of the room, probably to hunt down the intruders. Natasha hoped to whatever deity might exist that Sharon had gotten the girls out already. The woman didn't move from her spot, but she was frowning slightly as she took in the scene of Natasha and Yelena in the center of the room, with one holding a knife to the other's throat.

Natasha, in her pre-death thoughts, considered how this was like Star Wars. The Sith killed each other off. Blah blah. Clint would laugh.

One of the doors on the side opened, and Natasha's heart sank when a girl of about fourteen or so ran into the room. Her hair was brown, long, and dirty. Her eyes were blue, and they widened when they caught sight of Yelena. She started to run to her, never once saying anything, but looking up at her imploringly when she got to her, all the same.

"248," said the older woman sharply. "Return to your room at once."

The girl flinched, but did not obey. She didn't speak either, which left Natasha with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach.

"What do you want?" spat Yelena.

"Yelena, kill her," said the woman. "I have granted her too many second chances as it is. She has remarkable adaptability, but in the face of disobedience…"

"You put me in the room."

Natasha stared. Yelena stared. Even the woman stared.

The girl's (god, she didn't even have a _name_ ) voice was barely a whisper, coming from someone who did not seem to use it often. She was looking at the older woman now, with fear on her face. "The… the woman protected me from 210, and then you put me in the… the room, and now she will not look at me anymore. Why does she not know me? And… and the room. You will not put me back in the room."

"I didn't…" For the first time, Yelena looked truly shocked.

"Little one," Natasha said, in Russian. "Do you know Yelena?"

The girl looked confused for a moment, but then she nodded. "She fought me in training. She helped make me stronger. She killed 210 before 210 could kill me."

Out of the corner of her eye, Natasha saw the woman nod at one of the guards. Before she could so much as think, she threw herself away from Yelena and on top of the girl, taking a second bullet in the span of twelve hours (though this one wasn't in as vital of a place— her lower left back). Yelena's knife grazed her skin before she could pull away completely, stinging.

248 trembled beneath her.

Something like a wordless scream erupted from Yelena, and without warning she flung the knife at the woman, whose expression became glazed over with surprise before her body hit the ground. Natasha grabbed Yelena before she could do anything else, and pulled her to floor just as the men around them started firing erratically.

All hell broke loose; the building rocked from the explosives that Natasha had rigged in the generator room, causing the lights to go out again. The shots of the mercs went wild, miraculously missing the three of them. Natasha, in the chaos, shoved the girl towards where Sharon huddled in the doorway, praying that she survived. Natasha bit back a harsh shout as she flung herself into the fray, her first gunshot wound probably getting torn open in the process. Her movement seemed to jostle Yelena into action as well; she could see her moving through the men easily, tearing into each of them in her fury.

The rumble started soon; Natasha heard Sharon call for her, and saw her in the doorway.

"Get out of here!" she yelled at her, just as a second explosion rocked the compound, and the room blazed red.

* * *

 **Red Room Headquarters, Estonia, 2014**

Sharon felt like screaming in frustration when the second blast caused the fire— a fire that cut her off from Natasha and the fight she was embroiled in. Swearing in all the ways her aunt had taught her (and some others), she grabbed the girl and turned around and fled, knowing that someone had to get in contact with the Avengers. They needed to know that this was happening, and that Natasha was alive and needed them if she was going to stay that way.

She moved blindly, in the general direction that she knew the exit was, until she discovered a hatch that was, hopefully, the same one she'd used to enter the compound. Sharon shoved 248 in front of her, and then she climbed up and out into the open air, where smoke was gathering as the fire spread throughout the Red Room. She could see the C.I.A. team in the distance, and the girls huddled together; some looked terrified, while others seemed apathetic to the destruction. Sharon felt sickened, again, when she remembered how she'd almost been the reason one got killed.

 _She was dead. Her body was on the floor— oh god, she was dead._

Except that she wasn't— Sharon had gotten her out. She guided the young girl over to where her fellows were huddled, most with blank expressions on their faces. This girl, however, looked towards the flames, the reflection in her eyes making her difficult to read.

Guerrera moved forward to meet her. "Where's Romanoff?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Sharon admitted. "Look, I need to make a phone call; can you give me some space?"

He nodded once, going back to keep an eye on the girls. At least none of the agents had tried to forcefully sedate them— but then, maybe they knew that Sharon would go ape-shit on them if they did.

Breathing out in a hiss, Sharon dialed the number that Natasha had given her into the phone, and held it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Steve? It's Sharon."

Pause. "Sharon Carter?"

"Yes." She didn't have time to think about how he knew her real name. "Listen, Natasha and I are in Estonia. She's in trouble and she needs you guys. You can track this phone. Get here _now._ "

"On it." No questions, no fussing. Thank fuck Steve Rogers existed. "I'll text you our ETA when we get the Quinjet in the air, and I'll see about getting Stark there in the armor— he can fly faster than us."

"Whatever you can do." Sharon hung up, trying not to pace in frustration. She watched as the fire spread to more of the compound's exterior, forcing them to move further away in order to avoid smoke inhalation. She felt a tear fall down her cheek and angrily brushed it away— it had been one thing to know that Nat was going to get shot in Moscow, but it was quite another to watch the building she was in burn to the ground, and not know exactly what happened to her.

They waited for what seemed like hours. They waited while Tony Stark landed beside them, popping the helmet only to get an update from Sharon, before he zoomed to the building to try and determine if there were survivors. They waited as the Avengers' quinjet arrived (which did actually perk up several of the girls, who looked interested in the new arrivals), and Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, and Bruce Banner disembarked, with Banner bringing medical kits. He looked at the girls and then at Sharon, who shook her head; she didn't want to risk one of the girls attacking Banner.

And even through all of that, there was no sign of Natasha or Yelena. Stark said there were life signs, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly where they were, nor could he go in and get them out.

Two hours later, and Sharon was on the verge of giving up— when two figures stumbled from a cloud of fire and ash. Shortly after, the entire compound collapsed in on itself, effectively putting out most of the fire. Sharon, after covering her face to avoid the wave of dust, was barely able to make out that it was Yelena dragging Natasha along with her, both covered in ash. When they got close enough, Sharon could see that Natasha's face was too pale, and her front was stained with red. Banner hurried forward, taking her from Yelena gently.

Yelena just stood there, a blank look on her face.

Sharon nodded at Steve. "You got a pair of handcuffs in your jet?"

He nodded wordlessly, going to fetch them. Sharon took them and handcuffed Yelena, before firmly pushing her to sit down and wait to be treated for smoke inhalation by Banner. He was now shouting for the others to get more equipment, because it was clear that Natasha was worse off than they had all originally believed. Natasha herself wasn't moving.

Sharon watched, feeling numb, as her friend was taken aboard the quinjet, then the girls were, then the CIA agents, and then it was her turn to guide Yelena on. She'd noticed that Yelena was drawing something in the dirt. It must've been Russian.

As though sensing what Sharon was looking at, Yelena craned her head to look at her. In English she said, "Good riddance."


	13. Chapter 13: What We Live For

**A/N:** THE FINAL CHAPTER. Thank you so, so much for all of your support! It's been a blast!

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

Clint left the room, unable to watch any longer. Yet another girl, who seemed utterly confused when someone told her that she didn't have to be punished for speaking or doing something that she wanted to do. It was worse than the way Natasha was when he was ordered to hunt her down by S.H.I.E.L.D. At least then, she'd been angry. She'd been her own person (mostly). She hadn't been these girls, who barely seemed to grasp the concept of caring for one's self, much less having compassion for others.

None of them had names. Just numbers.

Stark had been extremely careful about the therapists he'd hired to help decondition the girls. They were sworn to the utmost secrecy, and they had a random rotation so that they weren't able to predict which day they would be called into Stark Tower to work with them. Each one of them had, however, warned that the process would take time, and that each of the girls would probably carry scars from their upbringing for the rest of their lives, even if they did ever achieve some semblance of normalcy.

Clint did what he normally did when he felt distressed— he went to see Natasha.

She was sleeping again when he entered her room in medical. Her breathing was steady and strong, but there was still a lump on her chest where bandages were. Bruce had explained to him that, in addition to the near-fatal shot from Belova (none of them knew how in the hell she'd survived _that_ one), she'd also suffered another shot from one of the men present in the Red Room.

Speaking of Bruce, he was in the room again, going over Natasha's readings.

"Her variant of the serum should speed up the healing process," he'd explained, "But it's still going to be a while before she's up and about again. She didn't get proper treatment for the first wound, so that caused some damage. Frankly, she wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for the serum."

A groan snapped him out of his memories.

"Oh look, it's the broody face," muttered Natasha. "My favorite."

Clint laughed. "Shut up, I do not have a broody face." Bruce snorted, which meant he was listening in. "Look I know you hate sleeping, but maybe you could at least stay unconscious long enough to heal faster?"

Natasha half-heartedly flipped him off, but she was smiling. She folded her arms across her chest, a pained look briefly flashing across her features before she let out a long breath. The first time she'd woken up, she been assaulted by a flashback strong enough that she'd had to be sedated again almost immediately, and she wasn't taking… whatever had happened in the Red Room very well. Only Natasha and Belova knew the full story, and Belova had yet to talk.

"You couldn't have brought a crossword or something?" she said. "I'm bored."

"Boredom is good for you once in a while."

"Lies."

Natasha turned her head to look over at where Bruce was, studiously avoiding looking at the both of them. "Not going to join in the conversation, Bruce? I know you're listening."

"Nah," he answered. At least he wasn't trying to hide it. "I'll let you two carry on."

"That's all we can do, I guess," Natasha murmured, more to herself than anything else. Clint winced. Shit— she really was beating herself up. He didn't grab her hand (she wouldn't thank him for that), but he didn't get up and leave, either. After a few moments of tense silence, he was able to sense something like gratitude from her.

"How are the girls?" she asked.

Clint paused. "…adjusting," he answered after a moment. "I think Stark's taking his anger out on his lab— he's blow at least seven things up in the last twenty four hours. Pretty sure Doc over there helped with at least five. I told them it was a bad idea to ask the therapists about the girls."

"Maybe," Bruce mutters.

Natasha looked away from him for a moment. "Clint, I'm sorry," she murmured. "But… I think…"

"Yeah. Got it." He stood, giving her a smile that he knew looked pathetic. "Sleep tight, okay?"

He left the room, thought about everything that had happened, and was barely able to hold himself back from crying.

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

Being cleared from medical lightened Natasha's mood— slightly. She gave Bruce a grateful smile when she left that he didn't return, promising to take it easy so as not to aggravate her wounds further. Honestly, the smoke inhalation had been worse— eating and drinking had been painful for a few days. But it was still better to be able to actually walk around Stark Tower.

The first thing she did was check on all of the girls. They didn't do much, according to Stark— sat in their rooms, staring at nothing. A couple had started to practice fighting (those were the ones that were apparently doing better, according to the therapists) in their spare time. But Natasha barely had the stomach to sit in on their sessions, reminded of her own experiences being deconditioned after Clint had brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D. The one girl— the one who had come back for Yelena, who seemed to care about her— was doing about the same as the others, although there was a defiance in her expression that Natasha felt was familiar.

She asked after Sharon, but apparently Sharon wasn't taking visitors. Natasha decided that giving her some space was her best option.

The third thing on her list was visiting Yelena.

"You're alive," the other Black Widow stated flatly. "I wondered, but they told me nothing of you. Merely asked me questions."

Natasha pulled out a chair across from her— Yelena was staying in a relatively comfortable cell, but it was a cell all the same. Its security was fortified enough that even Loki couldn't escape from it. As such, it was furnished by a table that was clearly made for interrogation. She sagged briefly, unable to hide the fact that she was more tired than usual, and would be for a while.

"I almost wasn't," she admitted. "I owe a large part of my life to you."

"I don't want you in my debt," Yelena said. She sounded bitter. "Now get out of my cell."

"Soon. I promise." Natasha paused. "But first, there are a couple of things you should know."

Yelena looked at her, but she said nothing to deter her from continuing. Natasha noticed that her hair was streaked with grease, which meant that she hadn't showered for a while.

"First of all," Natasha began. "About why you didn't kill me."

"You are a demon."

"Jury's still out on that one," Natasha joked. "No, that was no accident. Your shot wasn't fatal."

"You think I wouldn't—"

"I know you meant to kill me," Natasha said. "If I had been any normal person, you would have. And you should have known that. At first I thought it was sheer dumb luck; I meant to die in that room, and have Sharon be the one to track you to the Red Room, and then bring the Avengers down on your head. But you shot me, and lo and behold, I wasn't dead. Then maybe later I thought that you missed on purpose. But now I have a different theory."

"Please." Yelena sneered. "Enlighten me."

"The way I spoke to you. I tried to be gentle, like someone who cared." Natasha did care, in a way. But Yelena would never believe that. "And I think you reacted to it subconsciously. Can you tell me who that woman was? The one who remembered me, even though I don't remember her?"

Yelena remained silent for so long that Natasha was convinced she was just going to ignore her, like she'd ignored everyone else who tried to question her. Then: "We knew her as Madame B. She sat in our rooms with us every night, and gave us advice and listened to our fears. She has always been the one in charge of the Red Room. Beyond that, I don't know much."

Ah. Simply teaching people to obey orders wasn't worth much without implanting some kind of emotional tie to manipulate. Natasha understood Yelena's loyalty to the Red Room now, the unwillingness to part from it. She wondered if Madame B. had been that way with her; if not, then perhaps that was why she escaped, and Yelena didn't.

"I unwittingly invoked your connection to her," Natasha explained. Yelena scowled. "Some part of you associated me with her, and you could never bear to hurt her, could you? Not the closest thing you had to a maternal presence in your life. Or at least, you couldn't without making a conscious choice to defy her. And you hadn't made that choice yet when you tried to kill me."

"How could you possibly—?"

"I empathized with you."

Yelena looked away.

"That was all she had to do, wasn't it? Sometimes, loyalty through fear isn't enough. Sometimes there has to be some kind of love involved. Not that that makes it forgivable." In some ways, it was worse. Natasha sighed. This was more exhausting than she'd thought it would be. "Anyway, the point is that I manipulated you. I did it again when I spoke to you in the Red Room's hideout. I wanted to apologize for that."

"Why? It's done. You saved the lives you meant to save."

"That leads me to the second thing," Natasha said. "We're going to be holding a funeral service for the girls who didn't make it through the training program. They deserve a proper sendoff, as opposed to getting dumped into an incinerator and having their existence wiped off from the face of the earth. We'd be keeping an eye on you, but you're allowed to attend, if you'd like."

Yelena stilled. "I will consider this," she admitted. "And the third? There are always three."

"Just a warning," Natasha said. "I would think about what you're going to do next. The U.S. government is pretty eager to prosecute you, and the rest of the Avengers aren't very reluctant to hand you over. Neither is Sharon. Personally, I don't care either way; you might remember me from before, but I don't remember you. But think long and hard about what you want to use your abilities for, or I might not be so merciful the next time we meet."

With that, she left Yelena alone with her thoughts.

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

The lab was mostly dark, with only a few desk lamps on. It was also utterly silent, apart from the occasional shuffle of papers. Bruce sighed and mumbled equations to himself as he pored over his work. He needed to occupy himself with something after the heaviness of the funeral service from earlier.

Natasha, Steve, and Sharon had all spoken a few words for the nameless girls who had lived through hell, only to die too soon. There had been bitter tears shed from almost all who attended. Belova's eyes had been dry the entire time, but he'd heard screams coming from her cell when he passed it earlier.

It was like a black cloud hung over the tower, and none of them knew what to do with it.

He heard the door to the lab open, and footsteps approaching his workbench, but he couldn't bring himself to look up at who he knew had to be there. It was only when a mug of hot cocoa was set next to him that he looked up, just in time to see Natasha settle onto a stool next to him. He glanced at one of the monitors he was using where… he'd left results from her blood tests up. Right, they were supposed to discuss this today.

"I don't think I can remove it," he admitted to her, getting the bad news out of the way. "It's… it's like Steve, it's bonded to your D.N.A. There is no way to separate you from the serum, at least not without killing you. As for your memories… the brain isn't as clear-cut. They might come back on their own, but I have no idea if there's a shortcut."

Natasha shrugged. "I figured as much." At his skeptical look, she sighed. "I'll figure out how to process all of that later, Bruce. That's not what I want to discuss, anyway."

He waited.

Natasha closed her eyes, toying with her own mug. Her hair was just above her ears, and back to its normal shade of red.

"I wanted to thank you," she said, gesturing vaguely at the screen. "For looking into this for me."

He looked down at his lap. "I have a feeling you already knew."

"A hunch," she admitted, with barely a hint of a smile. "But it was nice to get a confirmation. At any rate, I didn't think it would be easy to look through someone else's blood and find something unnatural there, especially when you're a bit preoccupied with your own."

"It's alright," he said, shrugging. "I wanted to make sure you weren't dying or something."

She snorted. "I appreciate the thought."

He stared at her. Natasha wasn't usually one to get like this. She was the one who made terrible jokes, who responded sarcastically whenever Tony said— well, anything—, who relentlessly teased Steve about getting a girlfriend. She was the one who never wanted to be in one place for very long, and yet she hadn't left the tower for the past few weeks. She took a sip of her own drink, prompting him to do the same.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

She laughed. It sounded shaky. "Not really. I knew there would be no sense of triumph when it was all over— these things rarely end well. But it's especially hard not to feel guilty when you were essentially told that the upbringing of those girls was inspired by you, and everything you've done. It's bad enough that horror and violence inspire anything at all, much less _that_."

"I know a thing or two about guilt," he told her. "You can't let it eat you up."

"I know. To be honest, I just wish Sharon would talk to me. Or anyone. The whole time, I wondered if bringing her along with me was the right thing to do, and now—"

"She'll talk to you when she's ready," Bruce interrupted. "It's not something you can… there's no easy fix. But, you know… for what it's worth, I think you're a hero. You got those girls out of a hell that they didn't deserve, and I think you should consider that a pretty big part of your ledger wiped out right there. Something you've given back to the world."

She looked at him, the corner of her mouth curling up slightly. "Y'know, I think I might be sticking around a little more."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Avenging and whatnot. No more running off for me."

"That's good to hear. We don't have to watch Steve go all mother hen."

Natasha grinned a bit. "Ah, but then he wouldn't be Steve, now would he?" She stood up, putting her mug down for a moment, and he followed suit, not really sure what was going on. To his surprise, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, sagging into him a bit. He took her weight, unsure if this meant anything… more, or not, but not wanting to push it.

"Thanks for answering my calls," she said. Then she pulled away with something of a sad smile, and grabbed her cocoa and left the lab.

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2014**

Natasha was sitting in the communal kitchen when Sharon came in.

She almost let out a huge breath of relief, but she wasn't out of the woods just yet. Sharon hesitated a bit at the sight of her, too, but after a moment she set about getting a bowl out of the cabinets and filling it with Fruit Loops. Natasha listlessly played around with her bowl of Goldfish, waiting for Sharon to be the first one to speak.

She didn't have to wait long, thankfully.

"Do you think you could've—"

"No."

Sharon shot her an irritated look. "You didn't know what I was going to say."

"No, I didn't," Natasha admitted. "But I know that dwelling on what we could've done is useless, and it doesn't help anyone. We have to look forward, or we'll get stuck in the past."

"Listen to you, being all philosophical," Sharon said. "It's weird."

Natasha laughed a bit, suddenly at ease. She hadn't realized until now just how important it was that Sharon not be angry with her.

"So… has Yelena talked yet?"

Natasha filled her in on what Yelena had told them about the Red Room— that there were originally fifty girls being experimented on, that only nineteen were left (and they both had to take a moment to try not to punch something), and that the girl who had almost died at the last moment was important to Yelena in a way that none of them could probably understand. She also, after a moment, explained what Yelena had told her of the circumstances surrounding the loss of her memories.

"Long story short: I was training Yelena," Natasha said. "I became doubtful of the Red Room. I told her. She tattled— not her fault, she was afraid— and they wiped what was apparently thirty years from my life. I'm not really sure how they managed to pull that one off, but I guess I've always underestimated just how much they've fucked with my mind. So I'm actually sixty, or something. Who the hell knows?"

"She could've been lying," Sharon pointed out.

"According to her, she doesn't have a reason to," Natasha said.

They fell silent again.

"Stark's pretty nice," Sharon admitted after a moment. "I sort of lost it, a few days after… you know. I broke a few expensive-looking things. He paid for them all, insisted it was free of charge, and pretty much forced me to talk to one of the therapists he'd hired. I ended up crying all over her, and then went to see my aunt and cried all over her, too… it seemed messed up. They keep telling me it's okay to feel bad, even though we did manage to rescue those girls."

"It is," Natasha murmured. "But there isn't much you can do if you feel like it isn't."

Sharon gave something of an ugly laugh. "Okay, I'm just going to address the elephant in the room— you've noticed that it's mostly you I've been avoiding, right?"

Natasha had noticed. It had hurt once she realized it, but she accepted Sharon's decision and tried not to let herself recede inward as a result. What bothered her, however, was that she didn't know why Sharon was avoiding her. The obvious answer was that she had had time to think and was angry at Natasha for dragging her into the Red Room's mess. Natasha's instincts (which were rarely wrong) told her otherwise.

"Yes," she murmured.

"Did you want to die?" Sharon asked. "I need to know. And I needed to know badly enough that I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself from asking the next time I saw you. And I wasn't sure I could stand it if you said yes. So… I just didn't see you."

"No." Natasha had a definite answer for that. "I didn't want to die. I _don't_ want to die, Sharon. There were moments, years ago… but I know that it's never that easy. I did, however, accept that I might not be able to get out of this alive. There's a difference."

"I guess." Sharon looked at her. "You scared the ever-loving shit out of me."

"I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven." Was she? Was it really that easy? "Stop over-thinking, Natasha. I consider you a friend. I'm not about to let that go."

Natasha wasn't expecting the sudden rush of warmth at that, but she couldn't quite hide her smile. "Thank you. Seems like an odd way of making a friend, but then I don't usually do things the normal way, either."

"I noticed." Sharon hadn't touched her cereal. "What about you? How have you been taking all of this?"

Natasha, to be honest, didn't think that the implications of everything that had happened had quite hit her yet. In addition to 31 girls being dead because she couldn't reach them in time, there was the fact that she would probably never know exactly what had happened to warrant her losing her memories, or how she was really raised in the Red Room, or who the woman (Madame B.?) really was. It was frustrating, but she had never had too much of a desire to know who she used to be.

"I'll have time to… deal with this," she said. "Eventually."

"Call me when you do, okay?" Sharon offered a sincere, if sad, smile when she looked at her. "I don't think you should be alone when it happens."

Natasha would've been okay with being alone, but… "Yeah," she replied, smiling back. "Okay."

* * *

 **New York City, New York, 2015**

The next three months were difficult for everyone.

Yelena escaped a few weeks after the funeral service, and none of them were able to track her down. The C.I.A., predictably, were pissed off, but the Avengers weren't legally obligated to go after her. Natasha kept an eye on the intelligence community in case she went down a darker path, but so far she had heard nothing from her.

They were finally beginning to make progress on the recovery of the girls. Some had even asked about the concept of names, to which they were all told that they were welcome to choose one for themselves. Some seemed eager to get away from their numbers, while others were more reluctant to embrace the chance of freedom. The shroud of the Red Room hung over them all, but now Natasha could look at them and see the dregs of hope beginning to appear in their expressions. Tony insisted that he would find them all good homes once they were deemed safe by the therapists tending to them.

The C.I.A. had dropped all charges against Natasha, and with the backing of the Avengers, the scrutiny on her because of her past began to lessen. They had, however, fired Sharon for drawing a weapon on one of their operatives (it was a miracle that the Avengers managed to avert an arrest). Stark had hired her on the spot, saying that her resume was pretty much complete because it had 'friends with Black Widow' on it. Sharon did field assignments for Stark, and while she didn't really seem inclined to discuss them, she seemed content enough.

Not that Natasha wanted to discuss assignments when they were out at a bar.

"So," she said. "Rogers? Yes? No?"

"This again?" Sharon sighed. "He hasn't asked me out. I haven't asked him out. End of story."

"You're depriving me of my chance to live vicariously through you."

"Uh-huh." Natasha was beginning to recognize that as her you're-bullshit-is-uber-transparent voice. "Why am I not threatening to set _you_ up with any of your coworkers? Oh, right— because I'm not a madwoman."

Natasha lifted her martini at that. "Takes one to know one."

(So she might have wound up at Sharon's apartment after nearly having a panic attack. She might have curled up on Sharon's couch and sobbed after the other woman went to bed, only to find that Sharon wasn't actually sleeping and that she had a tendency to hug crying people very tightly. It had been nice, to open up to someone like that. Maybe— just maybe— she could try doing it with more people. Maybe she could let herself live a little more.)

"What say we go dancing after this?" she suggested.

Sharon clinked her glass against hers. "I'll drink to that."


End file.
